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A recent addition to the organizational research agenda is self-efficacy, a person's estimate of his or her capacity to orchestrate performance on a specific task. Empirical studies of self-efficacy have yielded several consistent findings. For example, self-efficacy is associated with work-related performance: life insurance sales (Barling & Beattie, 1983), faculty research productivity (Taylor. Locke, Lee, & Gist, 1984), coping with difficult career-related tasks (Stumpf, Brief, & Hartman, 1987), career choice (Lent, Brown, & Larkin, 1987). learning and achievement (Campbell & Hackett, 1986; Wood & Locke, 1987), and adaptability to new technology (Hill, Smith, & Mann, 1987). Also, studies have indicated that some training methods can enhance self-efficacy in the areas of self-management (Frayne & Latham, 1987), cognitive modeling (Gist, 1989), and behavioral modeling (Gist, Schwoerer, & Rosen, 1989). Further, when self-efficacy is enhanced, attendant increases in performance are noted (Gist, 1989; Gist et al., 1989).
Although these findings demonstrate the importance of self-efficacy for predicting and improving work performance, much remains unclear about the construct itself. The purpose of this article is to explore two major theoretical issues that hold implications for future research on self-efficacy.
First, there is a need to know more about how individuals form judgments of efficacy. Though Bandura (1986) described four broad categories of experience that contribute to efficacy judgments, greater specification is needed to understand the information that is drawn from personal and work experiences and utilized in the formation of self-efficacy. For example, modeling is known to influence self-efficacy, and the symbolic coding process is recognized as the mechanism by which individuals interpret the behavior they observe in others (Decker, 1980). However, less is known about the types of information, generated through observing others, that ultimately determine self-efficacy. This article offers a classification schema for information cues that influence perceived efficacy.
The second theoretical issue concerns the malleability of self-efficacy. In part, the question of how self-efficacy can be changed (e.g., through training) may be a question about how beliefs about abilities or motivation may be changed. However, greater conceptualization is needed about the plasticity of the determinants of self-efficacy: the specific causal factors that are susceptible to change, the extent of probable change, and the practical issues involved in facilitating change.
Comprehension of these issues requires some...