The emotional toll of referral rewards: uncovering the relationship between referral rewards, anticipated embarrassment, self-image-concern, and recommendation likelihood

Using four experiments (N=765), this research shows that a referral reward offered only to the recommender negatively affects recommendation likelihood via anticipated embarrassment, and this effect is stronger for customers with high self-image-concern but can be minimized by appropriate reward design (e.g., reward both scheme and choice of reward).