Effect on Restaurant Tipping of a Helpful Message Written on the Back Research Paper

Effect on Restaurant Tipping of a Helpful Message Written on the Back of Customers Checks - Research Paper Example icle entitled Effect on Restaurant Tipping of a Helpful Message Written on the Back of Customers’ Checks written by Rind & Strohmetz (1999) aimed to determine the effect of a written message at the back of customer’s checks on the amount of tips given to restaurant servers. The participants of the research were eighty one dining parties who ate at a northern New Jersey restaurant. The study was conducted over a three-week time period from March to April of 1997 with only one female server as actively involved in the process. The findings revealed a consistency with the author’s hypothesis that writing at the back of the customers’ checks would increase the amount of tips given to the server. The article based its theoretical framework from previous researches in the field of restaurant operations, particularly on tipping as additional sources of income for servers (Lynn & Mynier, 1993; Schmidt, 1985). Found at the beginning of the article, right after the introductory paragraph, the conceptualization stage presented references to various previous researches on the subject. An article (Statistical Abstracts, 1990) was cited to indicate the number of people working in the United States as waiters or waitresses. Other studies mentioned factors affecting tipping in the restaurant industry (Rind & Bordia, 1996) and server-diner interactions which entailed writing simple messages, like â€Å"Thank You† at the back of the customers’ checks as having influenced the amount of tip percentages given to servers (Rind & Bordia, 1995). The current research aims to present a parallel study on check manipulation by designing two conditions: written message by one female server with the message informing the customers of a good deal in future dining experience; versus no message written at the back of the check. The study employed an experimental method of research with statistical and correlational analysis. The experimental method was designed according to two