Antecedents and consequences of academic research and consultation performance of academicians in public research universities in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of Malaysian academicians in research and consultation activities and to determine the antecedent factors influencing their performance. The antecedents examined in this study are personal attributes of the researchers which comprised of career commitment and collaboration and social networking, a supportive environment for research and faculty workload which comprises of workload management and teaching and research workload. This study also investigates the extent to which research and consultation performance influence the wellbeing of the academic staff measured by their job satisfaction in research and consultation performance. The research population consists of 9,333 faculty members from five research universities (RUs) namely UM, UPM, UKM, USM and UTM. The sampling consists of various disciplines and faculties as a major researcher or joint researcher during a research project period. A total of 100 faculty members involved in research projects from each of the aforementioned universities were selected using stratified random sampling techniques with three strata (faculty, department and academic position). They represent probable academic populations as in the framework of sampling obtained from the five RUs. Academic position refers to the rank of professor, associate professor, senior lecturer and lecturer. A total of 191 academic staffs from various faculties from the aforementioned research university responded to the questionnaires. The Ordinal Logistics Regression Analysis (OLS) has been used to predict or study the influence of the five antecedents or independent variables (IVs) on Research Performance (DV1) and Consultation Performance (DV2). Two independent variables have significant impact on the dependent variable (DV1), namely career commitment and supportive research environment. However, there is no independent variable that contributes significantly to the Consultation Performance (DV2). The Chi-Square independent test results revealed that there was a moderately strong relationship between the research performance and the academician’s well-being (Job Satisfaction) level. However, there is no significant relationship between the consultation performance and the academician’s well-being (Job Satisfaction) level. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that academic research performance among academicians in research universities is influenced by their commitment towards their career and the supportive research environment. None of the independent variables contributes to the consultation performance as there may be other factors that could contribute to academic research and consultation performance instead. It was also found that a higher research performance among academicians in a research university will lead to a higher satisfaction towards their career. As a result, the academicians’ job satisfaction level will be enhanced with a higher research performance. However, it must be noted that the consultation performance does not increase the academicians’ job satisfaction level. Furthermore, the findings from the research have a direct implication on the research achievements among academic staff in higher education institutes. Therefore, based on the findings of the study, several implications can be synthesised and implemented in a planned and organised manner. Overall, this study may contribute to the existing education fields and relevant theories such as Goal-setting Theory of Motivation, Expectancy Theory and Social Career Cognitive Theory as well as propose a number of human resource development strategies that can be addressed to relevant ministries and universities. This is to enhance the employees’ commitment in research and development activities, commercialisation and innovation (RDCI) and to manage their respective performance.

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