The role of team-member exchange: Restaurant servers’ emotional intelligence, job performance, and tip size

Abstract

With its roots in the social support resource and social exchange theories, this study examines how team-member exchange (TMX) mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and job performance, eventually increasing restaurant servers’ tip size. The participants were 273 non-managerial servers working at full-service restaurants in the U.S. Results revealed that (1) TMX partially mediated the relationship between EI and job performance. In addition, (2) job performance was positively correlated with tip size. Theoretical and practical implications as well as recommendations for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• emotional intelligence
• team-member exchange
• job performance
• tip size
• full service restaurants