The Role of Recognition in Increasing Customer Oriented Citizenship Behaviors

Using survey responses from 3,508 service employees of a large Canadian charter bank, we tested the impact of employee perceptions of recognition on their customer oriented citizenship behaviors. We found that recognition influences attitudes and behavior through three main mechanisms: (1) Employees’ perceptions of manager recognition behavior; (2) perceptions of peer recognition behavior; and (3) employees’ understanding of the behaviors that are recognized. As employees’ positive impressions of these behaviors increased, higher levels of customer oriented citizenship behavior was reported in the branch. The contribution of this article lies in our finding that the effect of manager recognition is not direct but only indirect through changes in perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange. Our results confirm the importance of recognition in service organizations.