Robo-tipping with a purpose: The role of perceived fairness, altruistic motives, and perception of the organization

Abstract

Tipping is an expense that consumers are free to avoid but has been provided to waitstaff as an incentive to deliver good service. Five studies investigated consumers’ willingness to robo-tip in casual dining restaurants. The authors empirically demonstrate that perceived tipping fairness can enhance consumers’ willingness to robo-tip by strengthening the spillover effect between restaurants’ altruistic motives for introducing robo-tipping and consumers’ perception of the organization. By highlighting the role of tipping purpose as an actionable moderator that restaurants can manipulate to encourage positive outcomes of consumers’ willingness to robo-tip, this work adds to the much-needed debate about how fairness-induced effects can be mitigated in times of robot integration in the service industry.