An exploratory study of determinants for restaurant servers’ actual tip earnings: Individual characteristics and work conditions

ABSTRACTThis exploratory study investigates two different types of determinants for servers’ actual tip earnings (individual characteristics versus work conditions) using readily available organizational data. Unlike previous studies that measured servers’ tips by asking subjects (servers or customers) to report tip amounts, we measure the actual tip earnings of each server extracted from the point of sale system. The results show that work conditions (daily work hours, weekend work hours, and immediate supervisors’ characteristics) have stronger relationships with servers’ tip earnings than servers’ individual characteristics (gender, tenure, and job satisfaction). This study represents an initial attempt to use objective data to measure servers’ tip earnings and explore its potential relationship with work conditions compared to its relationships with individual characteristics which have been frequently examined in previous studies.