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theses

Customer referral programs, which encourage existing customers to recommend a firm’s product or services in their social network, have become a popular marketing tool. Existing studies have studied various aspects of customer referral programs as a consequence of their practical relevance. However, little research has been conducted on studying a special type of referrals, which made by employees to their social ties, namely employee referrals. Although employee referrals haven been an effective method for acquiring new customers and stimulating employee positive outcomes, it has been neglected in the literature and little guidance can be found to help practitioners design employee referral schemes. To address this research gap, the overall goal of this dissertation is to provide conceptual understanding of the impact of employee referral rewards programs on referral likelihood and its effectiveness on customers’ purchase intension. It is not only of theoretical interest, but also entails managerial implications pertaining to the optimal design of referral programs. Laying on the framework of self-perception theory, identity theory and social identity theory, this dissertation seeks to examine employee recommenders’ motivation and outcomes with different tie strength and referral scheme, as well as the moderating effects of relational framing, and brand strength. Different from previous employee referral studies that are scarce in general, this dissertation investigates the effectiveness of employee referral programs from the perspective of employee recommender and receiver simultaneously. The results indicate that incentives in the referral scheme will affect employee’s referral likelihood and new customer purchase intentions. When no rewards offered, employees are more likely to make recommendations to strong ties who also have higher purchase intention compared to weak ties. With incentives, employees will have higher referral likelihood with strong ties when rewards allocate to the customer, with weak ties when rewards allocate to the employee. In addition, employee referral outcomes with strong ties are moderated by the effects of relational framing and brand strength. When employee identity is salient, referral programs that framed in communal sharing ways by the firm are associated with greater employee referral likelihoods with strong ties regardless of rewards allocation. Similarly, brand strength also positively moderate employee’s referral likelihood with strong ties regardless of rewards scheme.

ETD_8502

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Zhijian Hong

doi:10.7282/T3W95D8Q

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.