Self-efficacy and personal selling: review and examination with an emphasis on sales performance

Abstract

Self-efficacy has been a focal construct in personal selling research for more than four decades. This article reviews and examines how self-efficacy has been conceptualized, measured, and investigated in personal selling research. Following a canvass of scales that have been used to measure self-efficacy in personal selling research, quantitative analyses of the self-efficacy–sales performance relationship were conducted, and an empirical analysis of nine self-efficacy scales and their underlying items was carried out to assess and compare the scales’ reliability and validity. The article concludes with several observations about the “state of the art” of self-efficacy in personal selling research and recommendations for future research.

Keywords:

• self-efficacy
• sales performance
• personal selling
• self-esteem
• meta-analysis