“Self-Efficacy in the Workplace: Implications for Motivation and Performance”
–Fred C. Lunenburg, Sam Houston State University, International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, Volume 14, Number 1, 2011
Lunenburg argues that Self-Efficacy, the underlying belief about one’s ability to accomplish goals and tasks, “influences the tasks employees choose to learn and the goals they set for themselves [and] employees’ level of effort and persistence when learning difficult tasks. Nine large-scale meta-analyses consistently demonstrate that the efficacy beliefs of organization members contribute significantly to their level of motivation and performance (Bandura & Locke, 2003).” The employee’s “sense of capability influences his perception, motivation, and performance… We rarely attempt to perform a task when we expect to be unsuccessful.”
Self-efficacy impacts performance and learning in three areas:
“1. Self-efficacy influences the goals that employees choose for themselves. Employees with low levels of self-efficacy tend to set relatively low goals for themselves. Conversely, an individual with high self-efficacy is likely to set high personal goals. Research indicates that people not only learn but also perform at levels consistent with their self-efficacy beliefs.
2. Self-efficacy influences learning as well as the effort that people exert on the job. Employees with high self-efficacy generally work hard to learn how to perform new tasks, because they are confident that their efforts will be successful. Employees with low self-efficacy may exert less effort when learning and performing complex tasks, because they are not sure the effort will lead to success.
3. Self-efficacy influences the persistence with which people attempt new and difficult tasks. Employees with high self-efficacy are confident that they can learn and perform a specific task. Thus, they are likely to persist in their efforts even when problems surface. Conversely, employees with low self-efficacy who believe they are incapable of learning and performing a difficult task are likely to give up when problems surface. In an extensive literature review on self-efficacy, Albert Bandura and Edwin Locke (2003) concluded that self-efficacy is a powerful determinant of job performance.”
Utimately, Lunenberg concludes that “Organizations can encourage higher performance goals from employees who have high levels of self-efficacy. This will lead to higher levels of job performance from employees, which is critical for many organizations in an era of high competition.”
“Cultivate Self-efficacy for Personal and Organizational Effectiveness”
–Albert Bandura, in E. A. Locke (Ed.), Handbook of Principles of Organization Behavior (pp. 120-136). Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2000.
Albert Bandura is the originator of the field of self-efficacy studies, and author of hundreds of articles and books over 50 years. He argues that “among the mechanisms of self-influence, none is more focal or pervading than belief in one’s personal efficacy. Unless people believe that they can produce desired effects and forestall undesired ones by their actions, they have little incentive to act or to persevere in the face of difficulties. It is partly on the basis of efficacy beliefs that people choose what goal challenges to undertake, how much effort to invest in the endeavor, and how long to persevere in the face of difficulties (Bandura, 1997; Locke and Latham, 1990). When faced with obstacles, setbacks and failures, those who doubt their capabilities slacken their efforts, give up prematurely, or settle for poorer solutions. Those who have a strong belief in their capabilities redouble their effort to master the challenges.”
Employees with low perceived efficacy prefer “prescriptive training that tells them how to perform the roles as traditionally structured (Jones, 1986; Saks, 1995). Employees of high perceived efficacy prefer training that enables them to restructure their roles innovatively by improving the customary practices and adding new elements and functions to them. Self-efficacious employees take greater initiative in their occupational self-development and generate ideas that help to improve work processes (Speier and Frese, 1997). Organizations that provide their new employees with guided mastery experiences, effective co-workers as models, and enabling performance feedback enhance employees’ self-efficacy, emotional well-being, job satisfaction, and level of productivity (Saks, 1994, 1995).” The perceived efficacy of self-managed teams predicts team productivity and satisfaction (Lindsley, Mathieu, Heffner, and Bass, 1994, Little and Madigan, 1994).
Innovation and entrepreneurship are strongly influenced by self-efficacy in the development and renewal of business ventures. Self-efficacy “plays an influential role in the development of entrepreneurial intentions (Zhao, Serbert, and Hills, 2005). Learning experiences and risk propensity had no direct effect on intentions to pursue an entrepreneurial career. They had an impact only to the extent that they raised individuals’ beliefs in their efficacy to identify new business opportunities, create new products, think creatively, and commercialize ideas…Self-efficacy continues to play an influential role in the undertaking of new ventures. Entrepreneurs have to be willing to take risks under uncertainty. Those of high efficacy focus on the opportunities worth pursuing, whereas the less self-efficacious dwell on the risks to be avoided (Kreuger and Dickson, 1993, 1994). Hence, perceived self-efficacy predicts entrepreneurship and which patent inventors are likely to start new business ventures (Chen, Greene, and Crick, 1998; Markman and Baron, 1999). Efficacy-fostered adoption of new technologies, in turn, alters the organizational network structure and confers influence on early adopters within an organization over time (Burkardt, and Brass, 1990).”
Perceived self-efficacy also impacts employee stress and physical health. Low efficacy leads to emotional and physiological stress “in which task demands exceed their perceived coping capabilities; whereas those who hold a high belief in their efficacy and that of their group are unfazed by heavy workloads (Jex and Bliese, 1999). Exposure to chronic occupational stressors with a low sense of efficacy to manage job demands and to enlist social support in times of difficulty, increases vulnerability to burn-out (Brouwers and Tomic 1999, 2006; Leiter, 1992, Salanova, Grau, Cifse, and Lloreus, 2000). This syndrome is characterized by physical and emotional exhaustion, depersonalization of clients, lack of any sense of personal accomplishment, and occupational disengagement with cynicism about one’s work.
We study intensively the risks of overconfidence, but ignore the more pervasive personal and social costs of underconfidence. This bias probably stems from the fact that the costs of lost opportunities and underdeveloped potentialities are long delayed and less noticeable than those of venturesome missteps. The heavy selective focus on the risk of overconfidence stands in stark contrast to the entrepreneurial spirit driving the modern workplace in the rapidly changing world.”
Employees with a “high perceived efficacy for remotely conducted collaborative work have more positive job attitudes and achieve higher job performances than those of low perceived efficacy (Staples, Hulland, and Higgins, 1998). Perceived self-efficacy plays an influential role in the self-regulation of motivation and actions through goal systems. It does so in part by its impact on goal setting. The stronger the people’s belief in their capabilities the higher the goal challenges they set for themselves and the firmer their commitment to them.
Effective self-regulation is also central to personal management of emotional states and problem behaviors that have a negative spillover on work performance. Employee absenteeism costs US industries billions of dollars annually. It is a serious problem that disrupts work schedules, raises costs, and decreases productivity. Training in self-regulation increased employees’ beliefs in their efficacy to overcome the obstacles that led them to miss work. They improved their work attendance and maintained these changes over time (Latham and Frayne, 1989). The stronger they believed in their self-management capabilities, the better was their work attendance. A control group of employees who did not receive the program in self-regulation continued their absentee ways.”
