Mexican Students’ Attitudes Toward Personal Selling: An Exploratory Investigation

The purpose of this exploratory study was to measure Mexican students' attitude toward personal selling as a career. A modified questionnaire developed by Kavas (2003) was used in this study of 500 undergraduate students at a large Mexican university. The study supports and extends current research on attitudinal differences toward personal selling. Overall attitude toward personal selling was evidenced to be negative. Out of 16 attitudinal items toward personal selling as a career, significantly more negative attitude was found among females, non-business majors, and freshmen business majors. Further, a higher level of interest in personal selling as a career was found among business students. Moreover, this research for the first time investigates and establishes that students with a family member in the sales profession have more positive attitude as well as higher interest in relation to a selling career. Finally, study limitations, contributions, as well as practitioner and research implications, are discussed.