1) In many countries around the world, it is customary for consumers of hospitality and other services to provide gifts of money (called “tips”) to the workers who have served them. 2) However, the specific service workers that are customarily tipped, and the amounts consumers give those workers, vary across nations. 3) For example, in the United States consumers tip over 30 different service professions, while no service professions are tipped in Iceland (Star, 1988). 4) In Mexico consumers tip restaurant servers 15% to 20% of the bill, but tip only 5 % to 10% in Romania (Putzi, 2002). 5) These variations in tipping norms are sources of uncertainty for international travelers and phenomena to be explained by hospitality and tourism researchers. 

   6) International differences in tipping customs may be partially explained by differences in national values. 7) According to Hofstede (1983), national values differ on four major dimensions – power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. 8) Power distance reflects a nation’s acceptance of power and status differences. 9) This value should be positively related to national acceptance of tipping because tipping gives customers power over servers (Hemenway, 1984; Lynn, 2000a).