Tip Work: Examining the Relational Dynamics of Tipping beyond the Service Counter

Abstract

Tips constitute a growing form of income for roughly three million American workers today. While existing scholarship on tipping focuses on worker-customer dynamics, it neglects the implications of gratuities beyond the service counter. Drawing on the case of restaurant workers in Los Angeles, this study analyzes tip work, the bundle of social relations and labor experiences framed by tips in commercial settings. I argue that tipping strains relations between subgroups of workers who, despite collectively producing service, are subject to unequal access to tip earnings. Tips thereby shape relations among workers in ways that exacerbate existing organizational and social hierarchies.

Do tipping motivations predict loyalty to the server in a restaurant?

“…Restaurant guests engage in tipping now more than ever as researchers continue to cite its growing economic impact (Wilson, 2019). As tipping has served as a unique financial axis of the restaurant industry, this study attempted to advance the understanding of tipping behavior, including a new association between tipping motivations and server loyalty.…”

“…The restaurant tipping literature has found that the service restaurant guests receive is the dominant reason guests tip their servers (Lynn and Sturman, 2010; Whaley et al , 2014; Wilson, 2019). Further, customer loyalty has been approached to a greater extent at the level of a firm rather than that of a particular person within the firm (Lee et al , 2009; Moore et al , 2005).…”

The health of restaurant work: A historical and social context to the occupational health of food service

“…In fact, a study that included only white participants found positive association with the tipped wage and found it as a source of empowerment, highlighting the disparities in experiences concerning the tipped wage 109 . The structure of the restaurant exacerbates an existing earnings imbalance with service work in which workers who interact directly with the customers receive tips directly while those working in the kitchen and back of the house are “tipped‐out” and given only a portion of the overall tips the servers and bartenders receive 110 . This practice contributes to the racial wage gap as discriminatory hiring practices place more people of color in tipped‐out rather than direct‐tip positions; it can create divisions and tension between workers of differing status.…”

Racialized Workplaces, Contemporary Racial Attitudes, and Stereotype Endorsement: A Recipe for Consumer Racial Profiling

“…There is considerable variability in the nature of occupations within the service industry and such variability is likely to produce not only unique domain specific racial stereotypes, but also inform the ways in which such stereotypes become manifest in service providers’ interactions with clientele. Studies should not only identify and test for additional individual (e.g., interracial contact, see Pettigrew 1998) and environmental (e.g., racial composition of the workplace, see Stainback and Irvin 2012; expensiveness of restaurant/retail establishment, 14 see Williams 2005; E. R. Wilson 2019) factors that encourage or impede service providers from endorsing market-specific racial stereotypes but also work toward advancing our understanding of the factors that function to mitigate the effects of stereotype endorsement/exposure on racial profiling practices (e.g., moral convictions, see Brewster et al 2015; internal/external motivations to respond without prejudice, see Plant and Devine 1998; bias awareness, see Perry, Murphy, and Dovidio 2015).…”