The Effects of Peer-Recognition Systems on Help Seeking

Abstract

Although peer-recognition systems have increased in popularity in practice, we have little empirical evidence supporting their benefits and understand little about the mechanisms through which these benefits are achieved. We study the effects of peer recognition on employees’ propensity to seek help, the primary driver for helping interactions at work. We find that peer-recognition systems have the potential to increase help seeking. However, this benefit is moderated by whether the system is broadly adopted by all employees or narrowly adopted by subsets of employees. Specifically, when employees belong to a group that uses the peer-recognition system, they perceive a help-seeking norm that is relevant for their own behavior, increasing their propensity to seek help. In contrast, when employees belong to a group that does not use the recognition system, they perceive the help-seeking norm to be irrelevant for their own behavior, which reduces their propensity to seek help.

Keywords: employee recognition, help-seeking, helping, peer recognition, peer-recognition