Copyright © 2011 Lawrence Arokiasamy, Maimunah Ismail, Aminah Ahmad & Jamilah Othman Determinants of Career Advancement of Academics in Private Institutions of Higher Learning in Malaysia Lawrence Arokiasamy Quest International University Perak, Malaysia Maimunah Ismail Aminah Ahmad Jamilah Othman Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia The dynamic changes in private higher education that were observed in Malaysia for the last 20 years have transformed the Malaysian educational scenario and have led to the immense expansion of educational institutions. The liberalization of the higher education in 1990s led to the rapid increase in the number of students in higher institutions. The increase in demand for higher education has resulted in the growing demand for private higher education in Malaysia. Therefore, studies on academic career advancement have become essential for higher education in the country besides becoming competitive. This article examines the factors influencing the career advancement of academics in the private institutions of higher learning (IHL). The research used a survey involving 212 academic staff in selected private IHLs. The individual and organizational factors were included in this study as the determining variables. Finally the implications of the study to Human Resource Development (HRD) are discussed. Keywords: Private Institutions of Higher Learning, Career Advancement, Academics, Malaysia. For the last 20 years Malaysians have seen a rapid increase in the number of Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL), due to the increasing demand for tertiary education. The growth of the tertiary education in the country is seen as one of the important strategies towards achieving the status of a developed nation. This vision is enshrined in the New Economic Model (NEM) announced in 2010 that aims to transform Malaysia into a high income economy by the year 2020. The goal is to stimulate economic growth by improving workers’ productivity across all sectors of society, in part through an improved system of affirmative action, sustainability and inclusiveness. A strategy to accomplish this goal is to empower the private sector including (IHL). Baruch (2004) has described the academic profession as the key profession of the twenty first century. The challenging roles of academics, in teaching, research and administration work are concerns that the academics need to take into serious consideration. The management in the IHLs is confronted with a variety of challenges (McLendon and Cronk, 1999). This is supported by Altbach (2005) who argues that academic challenges are very complex. The challenges include changes in the environment, manpower and expertise need, new policy development, technology creation, research and development emphasis, and the establishment of new IHLs including the private ones. Therefore those changes and challenges have certainly impacted the academics’ career advancement in the private IHLs. Knowledge on career advancement of academics in the Malaysian private IHLs is still in the embryonic stage compared to that in public IHLs because the former is relatively newer in its establishment. Other differences are the public IHLs are fully funded and monitored by the government contrary to the private IHLs. Therefore, the academics under public IHLs are more secured in terms of remunerations, promotions, and career advancement. However, the issue of promotion and other benefits in the private IHLs are controlled and influenced by individuals or interest groups with certain variations among the universities. Hence, this has influenced the progress and development of the academic staff in the private IHLs. There is still a knowledge gap in research on the academic’ career advancement in Malaysia even though it has been well explored abroad on a wider sector of employment. Past research had focused on the career advancement of managers, technicians, middle management and supervisory levels, and professionals. Wood ’s (2006) study was on middle managers’ career advancement i n Australia. Subsequent studies include perception on the teaching profession by Leatherman (2000), academic women’s career advancement (Bain and Cummings 2000), academic freedom (Altbach, 2001), strategic career development for R&D staffs (Petroni, 2000), personal, role and organizational variables and promotion to managerial positions in the Israeli education system (Cohen, Granot- Shilovsky, and Yishai, 2007), intention to leave the profession as academic (Huisman, DeWeert, and Bartelse, 2002), career aspiration of R&D professionals in Malaysia (Ismail and Ramly, 2011), shaping the right fit perception