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.

尽管现有的公共关系研究已经将自我效能感作为预测行为的心理因素进行了探索，但该结构已被松散地概念化和操作化，主要是作为一种通用措施，已经对其预测而不是其操作能力进行了检查和评估。它很少针对应用它的特定功能领域进行定制，并且通常通过衡量一个人是否可以在能力、信心和知识方面执行一项行动的项目进行操作。尽管这种通用措施具有预测能力，但该构造的可操作性力量在于它能够识别产生自我效能的经验来源，并提供指导来构建经验以实现所需的行为改变。为了展示该构念在公共关系中特定研究领域的运作能力，本研究回顾了班杜拉 (1977) 关于自我效能的原始出版物，以解释如何为公共外交中的特定研究问题重新定义构念：旅居者——经验关系持有者如何与东道国合作——培养自我效能感，主动转发信息，并对东道国提出积极的建议。调查结果 ( N= 320）对居住在澳门的旅居者进行的研究发现，具有四个经验来源的定制结构解释了两种交际行为：主动转发有关旅居者所在地区的信息和说服他人在其所在地区工作或学习。讨论了重新概念化自我效能以增强其在检查公共关系中的特定研究领域时的运作能力的过程。