Reconceptualizing the self-efficacy construct in public relations research: The case of sojourners and their communicative behaviors

Although existing public relations research has explored self-efficacy as a psychological factor that predicts behaviors, the construct has been loosely conceptualized and operationalized mainly as an all-purpose measure that has been examined and valued for its predictive but not its operational power. It is rarely tailored to the specific domains of functioning in which it is applied and is generically operationalized with items measuring whether one can perform an action in terms of ability, confidence, and knowledge. Despite the predictive power of such an all-purpose measure, the construct's operational power lies in its ability to identify the experiential sources from which self-efficacy is derived and in providing guidelines to structure experiences to enable the desired behavioral changes. To demonstrate the construct's operational power in a specific research domain within public relations, this study revisits Bandura's (1977) original publication on self-efficacy to explain how to reconceptualize the construct for a specific research problem within public diplomacy: how sojourners—experiential relationship holders with a host region—develop self-efficacy to proactively forward information and make a positive recommendation about their host region. Results from a survey (N = 320) conducted among sojourners living in Macao found that the tailored construct with four experiential sources explains two communicative behaviors: proactive forwarding of information about a sojourner's host region and persuading others to work or study in their host region. The process of reconceptualizing self-efficacy to enhance its operational power in examining specific research domains within public relations is discussed.