Abstract:

Malaysia is becoming one of the education hubs in the region. Based on Malaysia Tenth Plan, the aim of the government is to ensure education become one of the biggest contributors to the economy. Moreover, Malaysia is moving fast to become a knowledge base economy. One of the key elements of this process is having powerful academics. To develop academics and absorb academics from other countries, it is needed to develop incentives for academics such as advancing in academic career. Therefore, formulating academic career advancement based on internal and external factors is increasingly important. The main aim of this study is to find out the effect of competence development on academic career advancement in Malaysian private universities. For the purpose of this research, 300 personally administered questionnaires survey were distributed to academics in Malaysian private universities. The major finding of this research is that competence development individual factors have great effects on academic career advancement in Malaysian private universities. There are four individual factors of competence development, namely: Knowledge, Skill, Attitude and Behavior. The finding of the study shows that these factors have strong relation with academic career advancement in Malaysian private universities.