Abstract

To achieve its vision to become a world-class provider for higher education in Asia Pacific, the Malaysian highereducation has introduced a systematic strategic plan to develop a culture of academic excellence. Accordingly, anew position, namely a distinguished professor has been introduced as the highest position in the academiccareer. It is expected that an academic recognised as a distinguished professor projects excellent work practice.So far, there have been only three distinguished professors in Malaysia. Hence, this study aimed to profile theexcellent work practices among the distinguished professors framed within Malaysian higher educationpromotion system. This study adopted a multiple case study consisting of three case studies represented by eachdistinguished professor. The main source of data collection was the face-to-face interview, which iscomplemented by written responses from the respondents and document analysis. This study found that all thethree distinguished professors achieve excellent performance in all the five promotion assessment categories,which are the teaching and supervision, research and publication, academic recognition and leadership, servicesfor the university and society, and consultation and partnership with the industry. It can be concluded that theidentities of Malaysian professors are characterized by the local and global imperatives as they are shaped by notonly the specific agenda of the country but also the global trend. Issues related to achieving excellent in workpractice were also highlighted. Thus, this paper provides guidance for young academics pursuing forprofessorship to strategize their career pathway in the higher education sector.

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