The Practices of Succession Planning in Malaysian Public Universities

The study aims to examine succession planning by analysing its practices. The study was conducted on five public research universities in Malaysia. The practices of universities as the process of identification of posts, identification successors, the time period to fill vacant post, training programs for the readiness of successor, and outsider vs insider were examined. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews from five registrars of five public universities of Malaysia. Thematic analysis was used to record and analyse the transcripts. Four themes emerged: (1) Identification of Candidate; (2) Competencies development; (3) Filling Vacant positions; (4) Willingness of candidate. Results showed that practices of succession planning in Malaysian public higher education are still work in progress as in most cases the implementation of succession planning was seemed to be lacking in the institutions. This may be affected by the lack of formal programs and other factors related to the institution's culture.