Entrepreneurs were asked to rate their business's current performance on a 7-point scale (1 =much worse than competitors, 4 =about the same as competitors, 7 =much better than competitors) on growth in sales, growth in profitability, return on equity, return on assets, profit margin on sales, and the ability to fund growth from profit. These six items were averaged to yield a business performance score, with higher values denoting better performance (α=.95).
This self-reported measure of current performance compared to competitors demonstrates convergent validity with actual sales growth (Ling and Kellermanns, 2010)