Research self-efficacy sources of DBA candidates: A qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) study in China

Abstract

Based on social cognitive theory, this research examines the collective effects of individual behaviours (learning motivations and learning strategies) and environmental factors (mentorship effectiveness, course experience, and research training environment) on DBA candidates’ research self-efficacy. Based on data from 156 questionnaires collected from Jinan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University in China, this study adopts an fsQCA approach and concludes that (1) DBA candidates’ research self-efficacy stems from all three sets of factors, including learning motivations, learning strategies, and environmental factors. These factors, at either a high level or a low level, combine to generate a number of antecedent configurations; (2) environmental factors, especially mentorship effectiveness and course experience, substantially boost DBA students’ research self-efficacy; (3) unlike environmental factors, learning motivations and learning strategies seem to have limited effects on the development of research self-efficacy and act more as contributing conditions than core conditions. This paper makes theoretical contributions to the research fields of both DBA and research self-efficacy.