IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v40y2019i2p434-451.html

Weapons of the poor: Tipping and resistance in precarious times

Author

Listed:
  • Paula Mulinari

    (Malmö University, Sweden)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse how tipping practices are given meaning and acted upon by customers and employees. Though the concept of moral economy, the article traces the ideas of rights and entitlement that are embedded in tipping. The findings indicate that customers and workers enjoy tipping. The tension between them arises from customers’ use of the tip as a mediator of individual feeling and workers’ emphasis on the tip as an economic income and on the collective processes of service production. Workers use the practice of pooling tips to reduce the economic risk and the processes of individualisation. These strategies are defined as weapons of the poor as they are developed in circumstances of economical vulnerability. The focus is on 24 in-depth interviews with customers and employees. This article offers new insights into the moral economy of tipping and the ways in which it affects the forms of resistance available to workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Paula Mulinari, 2019. "Weapons of the poor: Tipping and resistance in precarious times," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 40(2), pages 434-451, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:40:y:2019:i:2:p:434-451
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X16653188
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X16653188
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X16653188?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mary Gatta, 2009. "Restaurant servers, tipping, and resistance," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(1/2), pages 70-82, March.
    2. Azar, Ofer H., 2011. "Business strategy and the social norm of tipping," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-525, June.
    3. Emmanuel Ogbonna & Lloyd C. Harris, 2002. "Institutionalization of Tipping as a Source of Managerial Control," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 40(4), pages 725-752, December.
    4. Marek Korczynski & Ursula Ott, 2004. "When Production and Consumption Meet: Cultural Contradictions and the Enchanting Myth of Customer Sovereignty," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 575-599, June.
    5. Conlin, Michael & Lynn, Michael & O'Donoghue, Ted, 2003. "The norm of restaurant tipping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 297-321, November.
    6. Azar, Ofer H., 2004. "What sustains social norms and how they evolve?: The case of tipping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 49-64, May.
    7. Mary Gatta, 2009. "Restaurant servers, tipping, and resistance," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 6(1/2), pages 70-82, March.
    8. Holland, Steven J., 2009. "Tipping as risk sharing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 641-647, August.
    9. Michael Lynn, 2004. "Restaurant tips and service quality: a commentary of Bodvarsson, Luksetich and McDermott (2003)," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(15), pages 975-978.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Edward N. Gamble & Omar Shehryar & Janet Gamble & Michelle Hall, 2025. "Dishing Up Morality: How Chefs Account for Gratuity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 196(3), pages 539-553, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Azar, Ofer H. & Yosef, Shira & Bar-Eli, Michael, 2015. "Restaurant tipping in a field experiment: How do customers tip when they receive too much change?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 13-21.
    2. Lynn, Michael, 2016. "Why are we more likely to tip some service occupations than others? Theory, evidence, and implications," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 134-150.
    3. Natter, Martin & Kaufmann, Katharina, 2015. "Voluntary market payments: Underlying motives, success drivers and success potentials," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 149-157.
    4. Parrett, Matt, 2015. "Beauty and the feast: Examining the effect of beauty on earnings using restaurant tipping data," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 34-46.
    5. Matt Parrett, 2006. "An Analysis of the Determinants of Tipping Behavior: A Laboratory Experiment and Evidence from Restaurant Tipping," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(2), pages 489-514, October.
    6. Weiqiang Tan & Jian Zhang, 2021. "Good Days, Bad Days: Stock Market Fluctuation and Taxi Tipping Decisions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3965-3984, June.
    7. Azar, Ofer H., 2006. "Tipping, firm strategy, and industrial organization," MPRA Paper 4485, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Thrane, Christer & Haugom, Erik, 2020. "Peer effects on restaurant tipping in Norway: An experimental approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 244-252.
    9. Dyussembayeva, Shynar & Viglia, Giampaolo & Nieto-Garcia, Marta & Mattila, Anna S., 2022. "Would you like to add a gratuity? When explicit requests hamper tipping," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 908-917.
    10. Azar, Ofer H., 2011. "Business strategy and the social norm of tipping," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-525, June.
    11. Azar, Ofer H., 2009. "Tipping motivations and behavior in the US and Israel," MPRA Paper 20304, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Ofer Azar, 2009. "Incentives and service quality in the restaurant industry: the tipping-service puzzle," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(15), pages 1917-1927.
    13. Ofer H. Azar & Yossi Tobol, 2008. "Tipping as a Strategic Investment in Service Quality: An Optimal‐Control Analysis of Repeated Interactions in the Service Industry," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(1), pages 246-260, July.
    14. Saunders, Stephen G. & Lynn, Michael, 2010. "Why tip? An empirical test of motivations for tipping car guards," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 106-113, February.
    15. Lynn, Michael & Jabbour, Patrick & Kim, Woo Gon, 2012. "Who uses tips as a reward for service and when? An examination of potential moderators of the service–tipping relationship," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 90-103.
    16. Lynn, Michael, 2015. "Service gratuities and tipping: A motivational framework," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 74-88.
    17. Haugom, Erik & Thrane, Christer, 2025. "The effects of party size and dining duration on tipping behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    18. Lee, Jeonggyu & Aggarwal, Anubhav & Rafieian, Hoori & Korschun, Daniel, 2020. "Do consumers use tipping to monitor service? Role of power and embarrassment," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    19. Ofer Azar, 2005. "The Social Norm of Tipping: Does it Improve Social Welfare?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 141-173, August.
    20. Holland, Steven J., 2009. "Tipping as risk sharing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 641-647, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:40:y:2019:i:2:p:434-451. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.