How Professional Development Influences Faculty Engagement in Higher Education

This study examines how professional development (PD) influences faculty engagement and work behaviors across cultural contexts in higher education. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions framework, it compares academic staff from Bahrain and Malaysia—two collectivist, high power distance societies with contrasting levels of uncertainty avoidance and indulgence. Using a cross-sectional survey of 312 faculty members and structural equation modeling, the study investigates how PD participation relates to teacher engagement and task-related, proactive, and innovative behaviors. Results show that PD positively predicts engagement, which in turn mediates its effect on work behaviors. Notably, cultural differences shaped the strength and nature of these relationships, with Malaysian faculty showing higher proactivity and innovation, while Bahraini faculty exhibited stronger compliance and structure. The findings underscore the need for culturally responsive PD design and suggest that effective faculty development must align with local cultural norms and institutional priorities. This research advances decolonizing PD scholarship by highlighting Global South perspectives and offering context-specific models of faculty engagement. It is among the first to empirically compare faculty development in Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian contexts, and its focus on faculty as a cultural subgroup challenges Western-centric assumptions.