Restaurant Tipping Research Articles

Does Customers’ Intention to Use QR Codes Impact Restaurant Tipping Behaviors?

ABSTRACT This study investigates the characteristics and flexibility of QR and its impact on consumers’ intention to pay tips in the restaurant. Through Prolific, we collected 325 consumers’ opinions on using QR codes when they ordered food at restaurants. The results demonstrate that the quality of app design and time-saving have significantly improved consumers’ intention to use QR codes. Moreover, the app’s quality and various food services do not impact consumers’ intention to use QR codes. Interestingly, consumers’ intention to use QR codes negatively impacts consumers’ pay tips. The findings provide holistic implications for improving the restaurant industry’s performance. Findings suggest that the restaurant industry must prioritize user-friendly QR codes by considering design elements, including visual appeal, clarity, readability, and relevance of the restaurant menu. This study is essential and provides insights that could help the restaurant industry modify its approaches to QR codes and encourage consumers to pay tips.

How have U.S. restaurant tips changed over time?

This research note analyzes tipping percentages from academic studies of restaurant tipping and finds that tipping rates have increased over the past half century. This finding provides some evidence that tipping benefits tippers beyond helping them avoid social disapproval (Azar, 2004) and that tipping is used by consumers to compete for positional (zero-sum) benefits such as exceptional service and high status (Lynn, 2015). Since rising tipping rates increase the costs to consumers of dining out as well as pay-disparities between front-of-house and back-of-house staff, this is a trend the restaurant industry may want to try to end.

Gender differences in altruism and the price of altruism: evidence from restaurant tips

ABSTRACT This paper examines gender differences in altruism using restaurant tipping data. More specifically, we investigate how male and female customer percentage tips vary as the price of altruism (bill size) varies and find that females tip more than males when altruism is cheap, males tip more than females when altruism is expensive, and that females are more responsive to the price of altruism.

Cash or Card? Social Image Concern and Restaurant Tipping Behavior

Existing literature in economics and psychology has documented that individuals care about their social image. However, most of the existing evidence is based on laboratory experiments, where the concern for social image is artificially induced. We hand-collect a unique data set on restaurant tipping and use the mode of payment to discriminate between social-image-concern and other possible motivations for tipping in a naturally occurring environment. The social-image-concern hypothesis predicts that consumers will tip more frequently when paying by cash, relative to paying by a credit card, because their tipping behavior can be publicly observed and enables them to foster a positive social image. We find that both the probability of tipping and the dollar value of the tip is significantly higher when paying by cash, which is consistent with the social-image-concern hypothesis.

A Study into the Relationship between Restaurant Tipping and Food Service Tangibility in Kisumu County, Kenya

Abstract Tipping is believed to have vast influence on restaurant food service tangibility, and thus, quality. This forms the basis of the assumption that foodservice clients are in a better position to reward and monitor the quality of restaurant food services. Nonetheless, the act of tipping has seriously been abused by food servers, hence compromising food service tangibles and thus quality. As a consequence, this is the origin of the observed service failures, not only within restaurant food service but also in the entire service industry. Therefore, the study sought to investigate the relationship between tipping and tangibility of restaurant foodservice. Cross tabulation, correlation as well as multiple regression was used in the analysis of data. The study found a weak significant association between tipping and food service tangibility (Pearson's R = 0.150, P-value > 0.05). However, multiple regression results indicate that restaurant tipping does not statistically significantly predicts the dependent variable – tangibility of food service (F = 45.619). Thus, at 95% confidence level, the study therefore concluded that there is no statistically significant relationship between restaurant tipping and tangibility of food service within the sampled hotels in Kisumu County, Kenya.

Restaurant Tipping Discrimination: Evidence from a Representative Sample of US Households

Abstract Discrimination in tipping creates concerns of inequity in service quality for restaurant operators (Brewster 2017). We use the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey data to conduct one of the very few nationally representative examinations of tipping behavior at US restaurants. We focus on differences in tipping behavior between groups with identifiable characteristics and investigate whether tipping differences between groups are robust to inclusion of a variety of controls. We investigate tipping at the extensive and intensive margins. In contrast to earlier studies, we find little evidence that tipping varies by race and gender.

Restaurant Tipping Linear Regression Model

The goal of this project was to build a linear model for predicting the average amount of tip in dollars a waiter is expected to earn from the restaurant given the predictor variables i.e. total bill paid, day, the gender of the customer (sex) time of the party, smoker, and size of the party. And this was achieved through the use of the Linear Regression method. The dataset of 200 observations and 7 variables was divided into training and testing sets in a ratio of 8:2 respectively. The model was fitted using the lm() function of R on the train set and tested on the testing set using the predict() function. And the model fitness was deeply analyzed to understand how well it fits the data. Using the Lasso regularization approach, the model was improved and this helped to identify the most important predictors in estimating the amount of tip received by the waiter. And also an interaction of size and smoker was included in the final model which greatly improved its data fitness.

Restaurant Tipping and Economic Efficiency in the Restaurant Market: An Economic Theoretical Analysis

In this research, we investigated an interesting and important issue: whether restaurant tipping would lead to economic efficiency or inefficiency in the restaurant market. We applied the theory of consumer choice to link restaurant tipping and consumer behavior. According to our economic theoretical analysis, we concluded that restaurant tipping does discourage consumer demand for restaurant meals, and hence leads to a substitution effect. The presence of a substitution means that well-being has been lost due to the substitution effect of a price-distorting tip, resulting in economic inefficiency in the restaurant market.

Studying the Restaurant Tipping Dilemma: The Triangular Structure of Tipping Stakeholders

Studying the Restaurant Tipping Dilemma: The Triangular Structure of Tipping Stakeholders

Restaurant Tipping and Discrimination: Exploring the Implications of Automatic Gratuities

Scholars have documented evidence of racial disparities in dining service quality and hypothesize that restaurant servers avoid or neglect minority patrons based on widespread perceptions that Black patrons tip less than their White counterparts. However, the precise causal mechanisms behind this discrimination remain unclear. If tipping expectations drive these racial disparities in service quality, automatic gratuities should mitigate discrimination. This survey experiment ( N = 349) randomly assigns servers to scenario-based surveys featuring either Black or White patrons and either discretionary or automatic gratuities to consider whether differences in four indicators of service quality persist when automatic gratuities hold tipping behavior constant across races. Survey respondents expected tips from Black parties that were about 11.3% lower than expected tips from White parties of eight ( p = .008). I find no significant differences in how respondents say they would treat their dining parties by race and gratuity type with one exception. Respondents to scenarios featuring voluntary tipping were more likely to say they would submit the order for their party of eight last when that party was White as opposed to Black. Meanwhile, there was no statistically significant difference for this service indicator by party race under automatic gratuities. The automatic gratuities reduced a disparity in service in an unexpected manner by inclining respondents to deprioritize the order for the Black party. Overall, future research that more robustly measures service quality is warranted to assess the role of automatic gratuities in mitigating discrimination in restaurant service.

Restaurant tipping and customers’ susceptibility to emotional contagion

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the connection between restaurant tipping propensity and customers’ susceptibility to emotional contagion (EC) in an effort to shed more light on consumers’ inclination to pay more for a service than they are legally obligated to (that is to pay more than the price by tipping).Design/methodology/approachIn this study, two different instruments (Tipping Motivations Scale and Emotional Contagion Scale) were simultaneously administered online to restaurant patrons. The simultaneous administration of the instruments allows the researchers to capture not only tipping propensity but also the linkage between tipping propensity and customers’ susceptibility to EC.FindingsThe results show that customers’ susceptibility to EC, social compliance and server actions has the most effect on intention to tip in restaurants in Turkey. These findings support the notion that universal human characteristics such as the tendency to reciprocate (Hatfieldet al., 1993) influence consumers’ propensity to tip regardless of the culture.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the results of this study offer some insight into why restaurant patrons tip, the fact that the study was carried out only in Turkey which has a collectivist culture limits the generalizability of the results to other societies that may be individualistic in orientation.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study can be used by restaurant managers in training their employees and improving their customer patronage, particularly patronage from repeat customers. Similarly, the results could be used by restaurant servers to improve their income.Social implicationsThe results of the study have potential to enhance the mutually beneficial relationship that should exist between restaurants and restaurant patrons. Indirectly, the results of the study could improve collective societal good.Originality/valueThis study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is one of the first to use the Tipping Motivations Scale (Whaleyet al., 2014) in a different culture (Eurasia) and explain consumers’ tipping propensity explicitly using the concept of EC.

Modeling the Relationship between Restaurant Tipping and Consumer Behavior

The theory of consumer choice was applied to model the relationship between restaurant tipping and consumer behavior. Using this model, we showed how consumer behavior responds to restaurant tipping and how tipping affects consumer-utility among different types of consumers and economic efficiency. The theoretical analysis reveals that tipping discourages customers’ demand for restaurant meals, which in turn creates bigger excess burden in the market.

The Contribution of Norm Familiarity to Race Differences in Tipping

A large web-based survey found that (a) awareness of the 15% to 20% tipping norm partially mediates Black–White and Hispanic–White differences in restaurant tip size and (b) norm awareness predicts restaurant tip size for Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites alike. These findings replicate and extend previous research results reported by Lynn and suggest that race differences in tipping can be reduced by reducing race differences in awareness of the 15% to 20% restaurant tipping norm.

Persuasion by Way of Example: Does Including Gratuity Guidelines on Customers' Checks Affect Restaurant Tipping Behavior?

This study examined the role of gratuity guidelines on tipping behavior in restaurants. When diners were finished with their meals, they were given checks that either did or did not include calculated examples informing them what various percentages of their bill would amount to. Results indicated that parties who received the gratuity examples left significantly higher tips than did those receiving no examples. These results and their implications are discussed.

Race Differences in Restaurant Tipping

Research on race differences in tipping suggests that (1) Blacks leave smaller average restaurant tips than doWhites, (2) Black-White differences in tipping persist after controlling for socio-economic status, (3) Blacks tip less than Whites even when provided comparable levels of service, (4) Blacks tip less than Whites even when the server is black, and (5) Blacks are less likely thanWhites to know that it is customary/ expected to tip 15 to 20% of the bill size in U.S. restaurants. The practical implications of these findings for restaurant managers, restaurant industry organizations, and restaurant chains are discussed. In general, those implications center on the need to educate Blacks about the 15 to 20% tipping norm.

An Analysis of the Determinants of Tipping Behavior: A Laboratory Experiment and Evidence from Restaurant Tipping

[Author Affiliation]Matt Parrett, Deloitte Tax LLP, 136 Peachtree Memorial Dr. GA6, Atlanta, GA 30309, USA; mparrett@vt.edu; corresponding authorFunding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation (SBE-0241935).[Acknowledgment]I want to first thank Catherine Eckel for her numerous comments and suggestions, as well as for her guidance throughout the writing of this paper. I also want to thank both my discussants and the participants at the 2003 ESA meetings in Tucson, the 2003 SEA meetings in San Antonio, and the 2004 ASSA meetings in San Diego for their helpful comments. I am also grateful to Selhan Garip for help with the experiment. Finally, I want to thank the two anonymous referees, as well as the Editor, Laura Razzolini, for their insightful comments and suggestions. I would like to dedicate this paper to my late uncle, Joe Bland, whose thirst for knowledge was unquenchable and contagious.1. IntroductionRestaurant tipping is a significant part of the economy. In 2003, sales at full-service restaurants totaled approximately $151 billion (U.S. Census Bureau 2005). Assuming a tipping norm of 15%, waiters and waitresses in the country earned roughly $22.7 billion in tip income in 2003. Restaurant tipping is also puzzling, at least from the point of view of standard neoclassical economic theory. Why do consumers voluntarily give money to their server after the service has been rendered? Interestingly, consumers still leave their server a tip even when they plan never to visit the restaurant again (Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler 1986).In this paper, I explore several determinants of tipping behavior using survey and laboratory experimental data. First, I examine social norms related to reciprocity and letdown (guilt) aversion. Reciprocity refers to the idea that people reward kind actions and punish unkind actions, and implies a positive relationship between the size of the tip and service quality. According to Fehr and Gachter (2000), there is considerable evidence that suggests a strong role for reciprocity in motivating human behavior.1 The theory of letdown (guilt) aversion asserts that decision-makers avoid letting others down. Charness and Dufwenberg (2002) show that letdown aversion implies that a consumer's tip depends positively on what the consumer believes the server thinks the consumer will tip.Although the relationship between service quality and tip size has been studied by several authors (Lynn and McCall 2000a provide a survey and meta-analysis), it is typically explained using either a buyer monitoring story (Bodvarsson and Gibson 1992; Lynn and Graves 1996) or equity theory (Lynn and Grassman 1990; Lynn and Graves 1996).2 Both Conlin, Lynn, and O'Donoghue (2003) and Azar (2004) mention norms in their recent work on tipping. However, the work by Conlin et al. makes assumptions regarding, rather than trying to determine as I do here, norms that operate in a tipping environment. Azar, on the other hand, is interested in how norms evolve, a topic that I do not address in this paper.I also examine three aspects of the tipping situation that influence how much consumers tip in restaurants: table size, the sex of the customer, and method of bill payment (cash or credit card). Looking first at table size, at least two factors are at issue, and they work in opposite directions. First, tippers may tip a higher amount in the presence of others at the table in order to assert social status. Status considerations play a nontrivial role in real-world interactions (Ball et al. 2001), and thus might induce consumers to tip more as a form of status acquisition or display. Alternatively, tippers may "free ride" on the tips of others at the table, and thus tip less. However, the common restaurant practice of adding an automatic service charge onto bills at large table sizes (usually six or more customers) suggests that incentives to free ride may dominate. …

An Analysis of the Determinants of Tipping Behavior: A Laboratory Experiment and Evidence from Restaurant Tipping

This paper explores several determinants of tipping behavior. First, I consider two social norms explanations—reciprocity and letdown (guilt) aversion—of why consumers tip in restaurants. Second, I examine three aspects of the tipping situation that influence how much consumers tip in restaurants: table size, sex, and method of bill payment. I address these issues using two data sources: a field survey and laboratory experiments. Customers were surveyed individually as they left a set of restaurants in Richmond, Virginia. The laboratory experiments vary service quality, table size, and information about others' tips in a controlled setting. Results from both data sets show support for reciprocity and letdown aversion, and that tip size decreases with table size. Sex differences, which exist only in the experimental data, show that men tip more than women. Finally, the size of the tip does not depend on the method of bill payment.

A Re-Examination of Cultural Influences on Restaurant Tipping Behavior

This study extends research on tipping by examining tipping-related service quality dimensions in an international context. It was expected that Japanese and American restaurant consumers would show cultural differences in how they perceive tipping-related service quality dimensions. Hofstede's dimensions of national character were employed to predict cultural differences in tipping-related service quality dimensions. However, the results of hypotheses testing provided weak evidence of the existence of traditional patterns of national differences in these aspects. The unexpected results appeared to be due to the different reactions to rewards in relation to service quality or to a lesser extent of the existence of divergent national cultures than the theorized effects of cultural differences suggest. Implications for these findings for international Japanese and American restaurant consumers are considered, and future directions for research are suggested.

Geodemographic Differences in Knowledge About the Restaurant Tipping Norm

A national telephone survey indicated that knowledge about the restaurant tipping norm is greater among people who are White, in their 40 s to 60 s, highly educated, wealthy, living in metropolitan areas, and living in the Northeast than among their counterparts. These findings support the idea that differential familiarity with tipping norms underlies geodemographic differences in tipping behavior. An educational campaign promoting the 15‐20% restaurant tipping norm is needed to reduce geodemographic differences in tipping and to increase the willingness of waiters and waitresses to serve all customers equally.

Restaurant Tipping: Free‐Riding, Social Acceptance, and Gender Differences1

The practice of paying gratuities for services is a worldwide custom. Tipping is found only in some professions, which suggests that it serves to increase the efficiency of specific kinds of exchanges. The literature accepts the view that monitoring of employees by customers appears to be the logical rationale for the practice of tipping. This can be seen in that gratuities are paid at the discretion of consumers after they receive the services for which they are paying. However, it does not explain why, given the voluntary aspect of tipping, rational people would not free‐ride on the tipping of others. We found that both men and women free‐ride in their tipping behavior. Yet, we also found that men are more influenced by social acceptance or approval in their tipping behavior than are women.