Comparison on Genders, Ethnics, and Academic Ranks among Faculty Members on Academic Leadership and Work-Related Attitudes

Abstract

Leadership in the higher education sector has had increased interest by academics and practitioners. This has been partly attributed to the changes that are happening in the higher education environment such as changing funding mechanisms, regulations and audit, increasing customer demands, competition and internationalization, and ongoing reduction in federal resources. However, recent studies have noted that there has been very limited paper conducted on the question of which forms of academic leadership are associated with individual academic performance. Therefore, this paper aims to identify which specific aspects of academic leadership skill- set has the maximum impact on academics’ work -related attitudes among gender, ethnics and academic ranks of faculty members in Malaysian public universities. A survey was conducted on faculty members in twenty public universities. Multiple regression analyses were conducted in assessing the relationships and impacts bewteen academic leadership and work-related attitudes.