A Study into the Relationship between Restaurant Tipping and Food Service Tangibility in Kisumu County, Kenya

Abstract Tipping is believed to have vast influence on restaurant food service tangibility, and thus, quality. This forms the basis of the assumption that foodservice clients are in a better position to reward and monitor the quality of restaurant food services. Nonetheless, the act of tipping has seriously been abused by food servers, hence compromising food service tangibles and thus quality. As a consequence, this is the origin of the observed service failures, not only within restaurant food service but also in the entire service industry. Therefore, the study sought to investigate the relationship between tipping and tangibility of restaurant foodservice. Cross tabulation, correlation as well as multiple regression was used in the analysis of data. The study found a weak significant association between tipping and food service tangibility (Pearson's R = 0.150, P-value > 0.05). However, multiple regression results indicate that restaurant tipping does not statistically significantly predicts the dependent variable – tangibility of food service (F = 45.619). Thus, at 95% confidence level, the study therefore concluded that there is no statistically significant relationship between restaurant tipping and tangibility of food service within the sampled hotels in Kisumu County, Kenya.