Extending the Validity and Reliability of the Intent to Pursue a Sales Career Scale

Abstract

This research is one of the first Intent to Pursue a Sales Career (ITPSC) studies to link intent to actual student behavior. In addition, this study systematically revisits the validity and reliability of the ITPSC-scale and its associated antecedents. Based on partial least square analysis, we find support for the validity and reliability of the four-item ITPSC-scale, but notice room for improvement on the ITPSC-Ethics and ITPSC-Knowledge antecedents. We extend prior work by investigating how ITPSC performs differently for women, students with a sales role model, and students who are more advanced in their academic career. We also observe differences in the antecedent structure compared with earlier work. Of the ITPSC-antecedents, the Perceptions of the Sales Profession construct dominates when it comes to predicting intent to pursue a sales career, something that calls into question the recent grounding of the ITPSC in the Theory of Planned Behavior.