Self-confidence at work: understanding and developing the construct

This thesis comprises two papers presenting findings that contribute to the understanding of self-confidence at work and the development of the construct. "Self-confidence through the lens of authenticity: A systematic review" presents findings from a conceptual and methodological review of measures of self-confidence and considers their use in workplace settings. It concludes that current measures have a number of methodological limitations and conceptually do not comprehensively measure the construct of self-confidence. Self-esteem and self-efficacy appear as thematically distinct constructs in the review, yet are used interchangeably with self-confidence in the literature. Self-esteem and self-efficacy feature in the review as being important components of self-confidence yet it was concluded to be a wider construct than either alone. Further qualitative work was identified as being required to understand this. In "Self-confidence at work; the development of a dynamic conceptual model", it is acknowledged that current approaches to understanding self-confidence in the workplace are static and focus on personal attributes, cognitive and motivational aspects over physiological experiences whilst paying insufficient attention to diversity. A model was developed using an embodied methodology that sought to address limitations in current approaches. The model captures the dynamics of loss of confidence and building a confidence performance and identifies the role mindset plays. Through incorporating experiences of self-confidence from a diverse population and giving due consideration to embodiment in our methodology, this study suggests that self-confidence is a broad, dynamic and social construct.