Compensating Restaurant Employee through Tips: an Antecedent for Organizational Commitment?

Economic and social pressures are forcing managers to examine how people get paid and what difference it makes. The foodservice industry uses tipping as a compensation method for many of its jobs. Research on tipping has focused on role conflict, views of the parties involved in the tipping process, and the relationship of tip size and other variables (Shamir, 1983; Lynn and Lantane, 1984; Lynn, 1988; Lynn and Grassman, 1990; May, 1980; Lynn and Mynier, 1993; and Lynn, Zinkhan, and Harris, 1993). The current research takes a fresh approach from the existing research on tipping to look at the relationship between tipping as an employee’s compensation method and commitment to their organization. Data were collected from 1362 foodservice employees. The findings support that compensating employees through tips does have an effect on their commitment.