A systematic review of succession planning in higher education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to synthesize the corpus of literature relating to succession planning in higher education, in particular, this paper explores the growth of succession planning practices in the higher education sector, which allows equal opportunity for genders to secure leadership positions in a unique fashion. Through the systematic review of 73 studies related to succession planning in higher education published in scholarly journals and dissertations from university repositories, this paper evidences the growth of empirical research on succession planning. Nonetheless, the current work hardly addresses dearth of succession planning for females in academia particularly in unique contexts that depict organizational, cultural, and personal nuances that heterogeneously submerge performances. Through a synthesis of the literature, this paper proposes areas of research to evaluate the hindrance factors in future empirical studies. The results indicate that further robust studies using action research design, quasi-experiment, and pilot interventions may be relevant to address the leadership crisis in higher education.