Predictors of academics' career advancement at Malaysian private universities

Predictors of academics’ careeradvancement at Malaysian

private universitiesLawrence Arokiasamy

Universitit Tunku Abdul Rahman, Perak, Malaysia, and

Maimunah Ismail, Aminah Ahmad and Jamilah OthmanUniversiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the influence of individual and organizational variables onthe career advancement of academics in Malaysian private universities.

Design/methodology/approach – A correlation study was conducted in six private universities.Data were collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire. The dependent variable wasacademics’ career advancement and the independent variables were individual and organizationalfactors. Using stratified random sampling, 105 full-time academics were chosen as the studyrespondents. They represented sampling criteria such as pure science and social science disciplines,job positions and academic qualifications.

Findings – Regression analysis showed that organizational variables, specifically mentoring, socialnetwork and organizational support, were the significant contributors to the career advancement of theacademics with 56.1 per cent explanatory power. These results are useful to human resourcedevelopment (HRD) personnel of the universities as guides for them to plan and implement HRDinitiatives.

Practical implications – This study contributes knowledge to career advancement amongacademics in private universities. These institutions are rapidly expanding in Malaysia to cater to theneeds of achieving the entrance of 40 per cent of the population into tertiary education by the year2020. At the tertiary education level, HRD is important specifically to create better awareness amongacademics about their career planning and aspirations, the role organizational-related factors have intheir careers and how they should respond to the services given by the institutions.

Originality/value – The paper examines factors (limited to individual and organizational factors)that are of concern to HRD managers in managing the career advancement of academics in rapidlydeveloping private universities.

Keywords Individual factors, Organizational factors, Career advancement, Academics,Career development, Private universities, Malaysia, Human resource development

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionThe World Bank (2008) refers to “education and training” as one of the four parametersin the knowledge economy index. The other three are: economic incentive andinstitutional regime (EIR), innovation and technological adoption, and information andcommunications technologies (ICT) infrastructure. The EIR provides incentives for theefficient use of existing and new knowledge and the growth of entrepreneurship. Aneducated and well-trained population can create share and use knowledgeappropriately. An efficient innovation system of firms, research centers, universities,think tanks, consultants and other organizations can tap into the growing stock of

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Predictors ofacademics’ career

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Journal of European IndustrialTraining

Vol. 35 No. 6, 2011pp. 589-605

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0309-0590

DOI 10.1108/03090591111150112

global knowledge, adapt and adopt it to local needs, and create new technologies forcommercialization and wealth creation. A modern and accessible ICT infrastructurecan facilitate effective communication and solve problems arising from the digitaldivide. This article relates to the knowledge economy because it specifically deals withone of the important actors in the education sector: the career advancement ofacademics in private universities which is one the components of human resourcedevelopment (HRD).

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD,2008) the knowledge-driven economy is more than a set of high-tech industries basedon scientific breakthroughs and driven by the internet. Increasingly, knowledge andother intangible assets such as human competence and the ability to form strongrelationships are the foundations for an organization’s success. In this scenario,organizations will continuously form networks in which interactive learning involvingresearchers, producers and users in knowledge development and sharing will takeplace. In this regard, public or private universities are also expected to generate newknowledge and innovation not only in technology but also in human behaviors andactions; one of the latter is in relation to career development.

This paper is relevant to both the knowledge economy and HRD. Its relevance to theformer, as explained earlier, is due to the fact that private universities are regarded asknowledge centers that provide services to adult students and the community as aresult of their functions in conducting fundamental and applied research as well asteaching. Undoubtedly, academics are regarded as knowledge workers. The relevanceto the latter is based on functions and purposes of HRD. HRD has been analyzed ashaving the following four interrelated functions: organization development (OD),career development (CD), training and development (T&D) and performanceimprovement (PI) (McGuire and Cseh, 2006; Wang and McLean, 2007; Abdullah,2009). OD refers to strategies taken up by the organization (in this case privateuniversities) to meet its vision in producing quality graduates while increasing thepercentage of population with tertiary education as well as complementing the functionof public universities. CD refers to planned processes and outcomes in relation toinitiatives undertaken by employees (the academics) and the organization to improveemployees’ performance in order to move them into a better status and position in thejob hierarchy. The key elements of the definition of CD are the individuals,environment and changes occurring through learning (Parker and Arthur, 2002; Pattonand McMahon, 2006) in which the organization becomes an element in the environmentand the individuals come from the organization. T&D encompasses learning activitiesas well as coaching, counseling and performance assessment undergone by employeesto improve their performance that eventually benefits the organization. Finally, PI isthe ultimate aim of OD, CD and T&D, not only for the individuals but also for theorganization to face the various changes and challenges occurring in the environmentin which the organization is located. PI is considered, both internally and externally,one of the intended beneficiaries of HRD (Abdullah, 2009).

Growing interest in the study of HRD practices, specifically CD in universities, is inline with the trends of globalization and liberalization of policies in education that havemade the roles of academics become multi-faceted. The roles and functions ofacademics include teaching, research and administration and this is crucial becausemany universities worldwide are required not only to produce quality graduates but

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also centers for wealth creation through research. Altbach (2009) and Baruch (2004)have described the academic profession as the key profession of the twenty-firstcentury. Hence, the academic profession is a very important sector in the developmentof every developing country, and hence the importance of understanding the roleacademics play in Malaysia in moving the country toward a developed nation statusby the year 2020.

In recent years the number of Malaysians in search of tertiary educationopportunities has been increasing. The emergence of private universities in the countryis very significant to support the need to obtain tertiary education. Therefore, acomprehensive higher education plan should be continuously evaluated so that theexpansion and development of higher education will be in line with the aims of theNinth Malaysian Plan (2006 to 2010) (Malaysia, 2006), the Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011 to2015) and the New Economic Model that provides the impetus to the country towardbecoming a high-income nation in the year 2020. Specifically, private universities inMalaysia need to re-examine their strategic plans of which one includes careerdevelopment of their human resources particularly academics.

A brief account of higher education institutions in Malaysia is necessary here. Atthe time of independence in 1957, Malaysia had only one university. By 2007, thenumber of higher education institutions has increased to 20 public universities and 18private universities. These universities run undergraduate and postgraduate programsand also diploma and matriculation programs that feed the undergraduate programs.The public universities are universities that are fully controlled and funded directly bythe federal government and public sector. Sources of support for private universities inMalaysia vary from government business corporations (e.g. Universiti TeknologiPetronas, an education arm of Petroleum National) to political parties in the presentgovernment alliances (e.g. University Tunku Abdul Rahman, an education arm of theMalaysian Chinese Association, a political party). In addition, there are also somebranch campuses of foreign universities in the country (e.g. the campuses of MonashUniversity, the University of Nottingham and Melaka Manipal Medical College). Thereare also a number of local private universities owned by individual investors. Thesepublic and private universities together with about 500 private colleges support theincreasing demand for tertiary education in the country. Private universities areservice organizations that have stakeholders to whom they are accountable, such asstudents, academics, administrative staff, parents and the community, scholarshipproviders and employers who will eventually employ graduates from the universities.

Problem statement and purpose of researchIn recent years, career research has focused on the career advancement of academicswhether in public or private universities. The increasing number of academics,especially in Malaysia as a result of the serious efforts undertaken to make the countryan educational hub in Southeast Asia, has fuelled such interest. However, academicsparticularly from private universities face uncertain career advancement. A study byHuisman and Currie (2004) in Europe, for instance, argues that intention to leave theacademic profession is high in higher institutions of learning. Huisman and Currie(2004) found that 42 per cent academics plan to end their career as academics to joinother professions; 15 per cent academics plan to leave the profession once they reachedretirement age and they are not keen to pursue a similar line of work; 12 per cent


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academics plan to find other sources of income, for example, to operate businessesrelated to the education field and 10 per cent academics plan to continue working untilthey secure a good job and better opportunities. The scenario in Malaysia is nodifferent. Amin (2002) found that there were complaints among academics in privateinstitutions of higher education in Malaysia. For example, high turnover rates wererecorded over a three-year period (14 per cent in 1997, 29 per cent in 1998 and 37 percent in 1999) in one of the private universities in Kuala Lumpur. Researchers such asSiron (2005) and Morris et al. (2004) further mentioned that the Malaysian governmenthas often expressed its concern about the high turnover of academics in highereducation institutions in Malaysia, primarily from private universities. This raisesquestions about the status of work of the academics at the universities of which one isin relation to their career advancement.

Career advancement is believed to be one of the dominant factors for the growth ofthe academic profession and universities (Altbach and Knight, 2007; Altbach, 2004).The fastest-growing sector of higher education worldwide as well as in Malaysia is theprivate sector. The rapid expansion of the private sector of higher education will havean impact on public universities in terms of the careers of the academics because ofcompetitiveness within the profession in both types of universities in various ways(Altbach, 2009), for example the setting up of research public universities. However,little is known about the influence of personal and organizational factors on the careeradvancement of academics in private universities because the available local researchdoes not focus specifically on the influence of individual and organizational variableson career advancement. Hence, the research question of this article is “How doindividual and organizational factors contribute to the career advancement ofacademics?”. Studying the influence of individual and organizational factors on careeradvancement is important in strengthening the complex interdependency of the factorsin the HRD system particularly in academia because HRD consists of elements ofcareer development, and individual and organizational performance.

The objective of the study was to determine the influence of individual- andorganizational-related variables on the career advancement of academics in privateuniversities. The significance of the study is to add value to the body of knowledge oncareer advancement and its determinants that will be used for the strategic planning ofcareer advancement for academics. Specifically, the findings of this study would clarifythe significance of individual and organizational factors in determining academics’career advancement; the country’s tremendous progress in its economy has made thenation highly dependent on the development of education particularly in the privatesector.

Social cognitive career theory (SCCT)SCCT (Lent et al., 1994) is derived from Bandura’s (1986) general social cognitivetheory to further understand individuals’ career interest, goals and performance. Thistheory features individual factors (e.g. family, personal characteristics, interests,self-efficacy and goals) together with the environment (e.g. organizational factors) andits influence on outcome expectation and hence the process of career development.

Lent et al. (1994) had organized SCCT into two components. The first component isabout learning experiences that will shape self-efficacy and outcome expectations. Thiscomponent describes how a person’s physical background interacts with the

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background contextual environment to form a variety of learning experiences. Thesecond component is about external factors to the person, which is calledenvironmental support, and environmental influences such as social andorganizational factors that can provide positive support or negative barriers (Floresand O’Brien, 2002). Later, Lent et al. (2000) divided environment variables intoproximal and distal influences. They defined proximal influences as external barriersto career goals that occur instantly, whereas distal influences need time to occur(e.g. opportunity for skill development that helps to shape interests and self-cognition).These important environmental variables are assumed to influence cognitive-personvariables and other aspects of career behavior.

From the theoretical perspective, this study aims to extend the existing knowledgeof career advancement with specific reference to the SCCT (Lent et al., 2000) that wasused as the underlying theory for this research. The theory basically consists of personinputs, contextual influences, outcome expectation or performance. In this study,person inputs are represented by individual variables; contextual influences arerepresented by organizational factors and outcome expectation by careeradvancement.

Career advancement is conceptualized to include an objective and morecomprehensive measure of subjective career advancement as suggested by Heslin(2003). Subjective career advancement measures both the organizational perspectivesand non-organizational or individual perspectives. In addition, most career studiesusing SCCT involved adolescents or students as the study subjects and were largelydone in a Western context (Constantine et al., 2006; Gushue et al., 2006). A career studyconducted in Malaysia (Mohd Rasdi et al., 2009) involved managers in the public sector.Therefore, the present study addresses the previous argument in an effort to increaseour understanding of academics’ career advancement in private universities in anAsian country. It further extends research on SCCT; however, it is limited only toindividual and organizational variables that influence the career advancement ofacademics.

Conceptualizing career advancement from the perspective of HRDIn this article, career advancement is somewhat synonymous with career developmentwith only a slight difference in focus. The former refers to the status or what anacademic achieves as a result of the activities to improve one’s career, whereas thelatter refers to the process undertaken by the organization and the employee toimprove the employee’s performance and job position over a specified period. Thedevelopmental focus of HRD is strongly reflected in the inclusion of individualdevelopment, career development and organizational development as well as adulteducation (McGuire and Cseh, 2006). This study incorporated individual andorganizational factors to explain their influence on career advancement of theacademics in sampled private universities. The following two sections explain therelation between individual factors and organizational factors on career advancementfrom the HRD perspective.

Individual factors and career advancement from HRD perspectiveIndividual variables such as family variables have a great impact on a person’s careerand there is a need to give attention to the influence of family variables as determinants


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of career advancement. Family variables such as moral support, work balance andparental demand seem to be associated with academic career advancement. Moralsupport provided by family members such as children and spouse would affectindividuals, particularly female academics and managers, either positively ornegatively (Ismail and Mohd Rasdi, 2006; Ismail and Ibrahim, 2008; Ismail, 2008).

The literature reviews on family factors suggest that there are many relationsbetween family factors and career advancement of academic staff in higher education.Mavin (2001) found that a common experience of many employed women is the conflictbetween work and family roles. The human capital theory proposes that employeesmake rational choices regarding investment in their own human capital (Marimuthuet al., 2009). The authors argue that individuals make rational choices regardingwhether or not to invest more time, effort and money in education, training andexperiences. Human capital represents the investments that people make in their skillsand it is another factor under the individual variable. Human capital theory suggeststhat investing in one’s skills and education should lead to greater value in themarketplace. This is because salary and promotions are proximal indicators of howmuch an individual is valued within a free market economy; hence, the human capitalfactor is expected to be a strong predictor of career advancement. Therefore, this studyemployed years of experience, training attended and formal education as indicators tomeasure human capital.

The personality five-factor model that consists of neuroticism, extraversion andopenness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness are elements thatmeasure one’s personality and each element has its influence on career advancement( Jang et al., 1996; Seibert and Kraimer, 2001; Mayrhofer et al., 2005). However, thisstudy chose only three dimensions of the personality factors because they seemed to bethe most relevant to career advancement: neuroticism, extraversion andconscientiousness (McCrae and Costa, 1997).

Organizational factors and career advancement from HRD perspectiveThe importance of having a mentor in career development has received ample attention(e.g. Higgins and Kram, 2001; Scandura and Williams, 2001; Lankau and Scandura,2002; Godshalk and Sosik, 2003; Simmonds and Zammit Lupi, 2010). For instance,employees with a mentor were found to have more promotions, higher incomes andmore work satisfaction than employees without a mentor (Baugh and Scandura, 1999;Ragins et al., 2000; Bozionelos, 2006; Arokiasamy and Ismail, 2008). Similarly,mentoring in higher education in the forms of support and sponsorship was found tocontribute to faculty vitality and career success (Henderson and Welch, 1993). Inaddition, the lack of pre-established mentorship and social network contributed to amaladaptive start in one’s academic career (Boice, 1993). Williams and Blackburn(1998) studied faculty mentoring in eight nursing colleges and found that mentoringwas related to protege’s research productivity.

Networks of relationships are essential because they are social resources as well ascontexts in which careers take shape. A large body of empirical research providesevidence of the central role networks play in the career development process (Higginsand Kram, 2001; Tymon and Stumpf, 2003; Van Emmerik et al., 2006; Ismail and MohdRasdi, 2007). Networks directly shape career outcomes by regulating access to jobs,providing mentoring and sponsorship, channeling the flow of information and referrals

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and the sharing of information for opportunities of collaboration and resource sharing.Social networks are also settings in which processes such as socialization and identitydevelopment materialize (Barley and Tolbert, 1997).

Organization is the place where the management of careers such as planning andimplementation of career-based activities are materialized. Hence, when discussingcareer as a system, including service-based system, it is inevitable that an organizationis considered a component in the career system (Bigliardi et al., 2005). In this regard,many organizations provide alternative work arrangements such as job sharing, flexitime, telecommuting, sabbaticals and learning facilities (Mattis, 1990). In addition,more organizations are offering assistance with childcare arrangements such asreferrals services, subsidies for offsite childcare or onsite childcare facilities.Appelbaum et al. (1997) and Bozionelos (2008) advocated organizational factor as animportant factor for career planning purposes.

Based on the previous review, organizational-related variables such as mentoring,social network and organizational support, together with individual-related factorssuch as spouse support, work-family balance, number of years in formal education,number of years of work experience, number of training courses attended, personalitytraits that include neuroticism, extraversion and conscientiousness, are used to observetheir influence on the career advancement of the academics in this study.

The research frameworkThe research framework consists of individual and organizational factors as theindependent variables and career advancement as the dependent variable. The studyhypothesizes that there are significant relationships between individual factors andcareer advancement as well as between organizational factors and careeradvancement. The individual factor consists of: family variable, number of years offormal education, number of years of working experience, number of training coursesattended, and personality traits. The organizational factor consists of: mentoring,social network and organizational support. The research framework is shown inFigure 1.

MethodsPopulation, sampling and data collection proceduresThe study population consisted of 2,000 academic staff in full-fledged privateuniversities. The study used stratified random sampling (Ary et al., 2006). Therecommended minimum sample size to ensure stable regression analysis is in the range100 to 150 (Hair et al., 2006). Thus, the sample size of 150 was sufficient to be used forthe purpose of the study. This study used a survey method in which questionnaireswere sent to the respondents personally by the researcher through the respectivehuman resource personnel or posted by ordinary mail to the human resource managersof the respective universities upon agreement to participate in the survey. The datacollection was based on a self-administered questionnaire. The merits of this techniqueare the respondents are free to respond to the items in the questionnaire in terms oftime constraint and content; and the respondents are not under the control of theenumerator as compared to face-to-face interviews. A self-administered questionnaireis very suitable for measuring constructs that are based on scales (Ary et al., 2006). Thepurpose of data collection was explained on the cover of the questionnaire together


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with instructions and assurance of the confidentiality of the data collected. Thelanguage used in the instrument was English.

The study received 105 responses giving a response rate of 70.1 per cent. All therespondents are full-time academics because the number of part-time academics isinsignificant in Malaysian universities. The researcher stressed the non-traceability

Figure 1.The research framework

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and anonymity of the respondents upon receiving the questionnaires. The samplingcriteria used in the survey were academics with a minimum of five years of workexperience in private universities that have both science and humanities programs.

InstrumentIn this study, responses to the questionnaire were based on a seven-point Likert scale;the scale ranged from 1 ¼ strongly disagree to 7 ¼ strongly agree. The contentvalidity test was done through verification involving a panel of judges who wereacademics in the field of HRD who specialized in career development. Some of thestatements were amended based on the suitability to the local context and the purposeof the study as suggested by the panel of judges. The reliabilities of the test measureswere taken during a pilot study of which all groups of questions were above theacceptable minimum Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.70 (Hair et al., 2006). The pilot testused 25 respondents. The components in the questionnaire included respondents’background, academic career advancement, individual and organizational variables.

Respondents’ background. This section consists of 14 questions focusing onrespondents’ demographic characteristics. The characteristics of the respondents wereincluded because of their usefulness in interpreting the data: they explained the profileof the respondents.

Career advancement. This section includes ten questions that were adapted from thework of Foster et al. (2000). Examples of questions in this section are: “I have theopportunity to contribute to my institution” and “I do not encounter any barrier in mypromotion”.

Individual variables. Family. These seven-item questions were adapted from thework of Frone and Rice (1987) on job of parent, job of spouse, work-family conflict andspouse support, and on Spanier’s (1976) study on marital satisfaction and Bedeianet al.’s (1988) study on parental demands. Examples of questions used are: “Mymarriage suffers because of my work” and “I am able to balance parental demands andwork”.

Personality. There were ten questions in this section and they were adapted fromSidek’s (2002) study. Examples of questions are: “I feel more comfortable working withpeers” and “I like to live in a changing environment”.

Organizational variables. Mentoring. This item consists of 15 questions that wereadapted from the study of Scandura (1992, cited in Scandura and Williams, 2001).Examples of questions are: “I admire a mentor’s ability to motivate others” and “Iconsider my mentor to be a friend”.

Social network. This item consisted of eight questions that were adapted fromNetworking Behaviors Scale (Forret and Dougherty, 2001). Examples of questions are:“My superior and co-workers are willing to help me” and “I can freely access newknowledge, skills and information in my institution”.

Organizational support. This item consisted of 11 questions that were developed byresearch based on the literature review (Bozionelos, 2008; Eder and Eisenberger, 2008)and adapted to local context because organizational processes are context specific.Examples are: “My institution rewards me for my achievement” and “This institutionoffers thorough training to improve employees’ job skills”.


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Data analysisThe data were normally distributed; they fell within 21.0 and þ1.0 of standarddeviation. Hair et al. (2006) pointed out that skewness values falling outside the rangeof 21.0 and þ1.0 indicate a substantially skewed distribution. With the normallydistributed data, the study proceeded with the parametric tests.

The aim of this study was to examine the influence of individual and organizationalfactors on the career advancement of academics in private universities. Multipleregression (MLR) analysis, specifically the enter method, was used. Hair et al. (2006)advocated that MLR analysis focused on three key questions:

(1) Whether a statistical relationship exists between the independent anddependent variables.

(2) Whether there is a predictive relationship between the independent anddependent variables.

(3) Whether there is a simple linear relationship between the independent variablesand the dependent variable.

Among the statistical results determined from the regression analysis areunstandardized coefficient (b), F-value, regression coefficient (R), coefficient ofdetermination (R 2), and the adjusted R 2. The purpose of the MLR analysis was toexplore the amount of variance explained by the independent variables toward careeradvancement as the dependent variable.

Results and discussionOf the respondents, 56.1 per cent were female and 43.9 per cent were male. A majorityof the respondents (75.6 per cent) were lecturers, followed by senior lecturer (18.3 percent), assistant professor (3.7 per cent) and associate professor (2.4 per cent). Of therespondents 81.7 per cent were married and 18.3 per cent were single. More thanone-third of the respondents (38.2 per cent) were Chinese, followed by Malay (35.4 percent), Indian (20.7 per cent) and others (5.7 per cent).

Table I shows the means, standard deviation and correlation coefficients. Thecorrelation analysis shows that organizational variables were significantly andpositively related to career advancement (mentoring r ¼ 0.457, social networkr ¼ 0.489 and organizational support r ¼ 0.536, p , 0:01). However, there was nosignificant correlation between individual variables (family, formal education, trainingattended and experience) and career advancement.

Table II shows the MLR between the variables. The model is found statisticallysignificant (F ¼ 11:216; p ¼ 0:000) and explains as much as 56.1 per cent of thevariance of the career advancement of the academics (Adjusted R 2 ¼ 0.561). Table IIshows “mentoring”, “social network” and “organizational support” as statisticallysignificant and positive predictors of career advancement (mentorb ¼ 0:089; p ¼ 0:011; social network b ¼ 0:361; p ¼ 0:021 and organizationalsupport b ¼ 0:489; p ¼ 0:000). Thus, we accept that mentoring, social network andorganizational support are capable of influencing the level of career advancement. For“family”, “formal education”, “work experience”, “training attended” and “personality”the Beta coefficients (b) and p-value are found statistically insignificant (Familyb ¼ 0:209; p ¼ 0:514; Formal education b ¼ 0:120; p ¼ 0:715; Work experienceb ¼ 20:131; p ¼ 0:311; Training attended b ¼ 20:052; p ¼ 0:573; Personality

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Table I.Correlations matrix of

individual, organizationaland career advancement

variables


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b ¼ 0:428; p ¼ 0:072). Using variance inflation factor (VIF) method the data show thatthere was no multi-collinearity because the VIFs were less than 10.

This paper has examined the predictability of career advancement among academicsin private universities in Malaysia. The study considered organizational variables suchas mentoring, social network and organizational support and they were found tosignificantly influence the career advancement of the academics. The results show thatindividual variables did not significantly contribute to career advancement. One reasonthat might explain this difference is that the career examined in this study is very muchassociated with organization. This is very similar to the research findings of Rhoadesand Eisenberger (2002) who argue that organizational variables are extremely importantin determining career advancement of employees because the organization is the contextin which the career is in action. The academics believe that the status of the universitydetermines the types of HRD initiatives and their career advancement.

LimitationsSome limitations of this study must be addressed. First, the findings were based on asample of 105 respondents. The sample size was considered small to represent thepopulation. Second, the data generated from this study were based on aself-administrated questionnaire. The study is a cross-sectional study. It is knownthat the findings could differ from other designs such as longitudinal or time-seriesstudies.

Third, the respondents’ career advancement and its contributing factors wereidentified based on self-reported data; therefore, this has resulted in some commonmethod variance. Additionally, data accuracy would depend on the respondents’willingness and honesty in answering all the questions. However, to assist respondentsin answering the items and to avoid respondents’ biasness, detailed instructions weregiven in each section including the meaning of key terms used in the questionnaire.

Conclusions and implications on HRDThe study concludes that organizational variables served as predictors for academiccareer advancement. This shows the association of context and environment where acareer occurs. Although organizational factors are important in charting one’s career,

Item Beta value (b) p-value VIF

Family 0.209 0.514 1.253Formal education 0.120 0.715 1.174Work experience 20.131 0.311 1.319Training attended 20.052 0.573 1.063Personality 0.428 0.072 2.250Mentoring 0.089 0.011 1.258Social network 0.361 0.021 2.414Organizational support 0.489 0.000 1.174F 11.216p 0.000R 0.785R 2 0.616Adj. R 2 0.561

Table II.Multiple regressionanalysis

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they should be blended with individual variables; however, the selected individualvariables were not able to indicate their significance in influencing the careeradvancement of the academics in this study.

HRD refers to improvement in skills, ability, knowledge and attitudes of employeesin an organization. Therefore, career can be treated as a source of motivation foracademics not only to function accordingly but also to make their presence felt by theuniversities. Such involvement in HRD initiatives organized by the institutionseliminates academics’ resistance toward learning, turnover and perceptions of anuncertain career prospect. This research will enhance our insights into how we canmake academic career advancement more certain by knowing the influence of theindividual and the organizational variables.

In the midst of the change and dynamics of HRD meaning and practice, there is aneed to come up with a relevant framework to guide academics and human resourcemanagers in managing careers. Employees are frequently cited as the most importantasset in organizations but managing them has never been easier. The results of thisstudy provide insights into questions about which individual and organizationalfactors exert influence on the career advancement of academics in private universities.

The significant influence of the organizational variables on career advancementprovides several practical implications to HRD. First, mentoring should be capitalizedon as one of the strategies in advancing the career of academics. Private universitiesshould try more innovative mentoring strategies such as e-mentoring or virtualmentoring (Simmonds and Zammit Lupi, 2010) to complement the traditionalface-to-face meetings of a mentor and the protege in line with the sophistication incommunication technologies. These types of mentoring technique allow for morefreedom in terms of content and mobility because they facilitate the mentoring processby going beyond physical constraints.

Second, networking is basically an organizational function. Private universitiesshould strengthen their policies in collaborative works with other organizations notonly locally but also internationally in line with the country’s goal to become aninternational tertiary education provider as well as to make the country aninternational hub in the Asian region. Such networks can be started individually but toflourish further and to make networking between scholars at the international levelsustainable, organizational support in terms of financial resources is needed.

Finally, organizational support in the way that it was defined in this study, in theforms of flexibility in work, promotional structure, career planning and rewards, offersmore practical implications that every university administrator should be concernedwith. Because the organization is the place where career advancement takes place, theprivate universities concerned should provide an acceptable structure in whichacademics are able to manage their time at work in terms of total number of hours perweek instead of rigidly being required to be at the office from 8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.every day. The private universities should also have a transparent promotionalstructure to enable lecturers to plan their career movement from a lecturer to become asenior lecturer, an associate professor and a professor, based on clear and structuredrequirements for each promotion. Consequently, the private universities concernedmust provide an annual reward system for excellent academics as is practiced in thepublic sector including universities. All these will certainly help in the career planningof the academics and make the universities an attractive place to build their careers.


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Recommendations for future researchThe present research used correlation and cross-sectional design where the data werecollected at one point in time. Future research should consider longitudinal ortime-series studies. It is also essential to consider other variables such as socio-politicaland developmental variables that influence career advancement of academicsespecially now because of the present concerns of globalization and liberalization ofhigher education in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. A comparative study involvingacademics in private and public universities is also worth studying in the future.

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About the authorsLawrence Arokiasamy is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Entrepreneurship, Faculty ofBusiness and Finance, Universitit Tunku Abdul Rahman, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat,Kampar, Perak, Malaysia. He earned his bachelor degree from the University of Malaya and MScin Human Resource Development (HRD) from Universiti Putra Malaysia. Currently he ispursuing a PhD degree in HRD from Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Maimunah Ismail is Professor in the Department of Professional Development andContinuing Education, Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang,Selangor, Malaysia. Maimunah Ismail is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:[email protected]

Aminah Ahmad is Professor in the Department of Professional Development and ContinuingEducation, Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor,Malaysia.

Jamilah Othman is Senior Lecturer and Head of Peace Studies Laboratory, Institute of SocialResearch, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.


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Predictors of academics' career advancement at Malaysian private universities