The influence of tip distribution policy on consumer tipping behaviors

46 pagesTip sharing and tip pooling have become common tip distribution practices in addition to the tradition of servers keeping their individual tips. This article contributes to the study of tip distribution systems from the consumer perspective. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of consumer knowledge of restaurant tip distribution policies on consumer attitudes toward those policies and the amounts of tips they are willing to pay. Two behavioral intervention experiments were conducted to compare consumers’ attitude toward different tip distribution policies and tip amounts under different tip distribution systems. Consumer tipping motives were added as moderators of the observed effects. Results of two online hypothetical scenario experiments indicate that people prefer servers to keep all tips as individual gratuities rather than being subjected to any kind of tip sharing or tip pooling. However, this sentiment did not affect their tipping behaviors. Intrinsic tipping motives rather than extrinsic tipping motives or duty motives increase the effects of tip sharing or tip pooling on consumer policy preferences.2023-09-1