The purposes of this review are to identify the antecedents variables associated with the organisational commitment of academics in various countries, and also to indicate gaps in the educational literature regarding organisational commitment that requires further examination. The review of the literature indicated that previous research examining academics’ organisational commitment has focused on different antecedent variables. Several antecedents have been commonly studied (such as justice, role ambiguity, role conflict, support from supervisor/department chair, and job satisfaction). Other antecedents have received less attention (such as organisational support, support from colleagues, and participation in decision-making). The literature review also revealed that the majority of empirical studies undertaken to investigate the antecedents of organisational commitment in tertiary educational institutions have been atheoretical, have focused on a unidimensional view of organisational commitment, and have been conducted in North America and Western countries. Further, most of these studies have been cross-sectional and may have suffered from common method variance resulting in the erroneous relationship between variables measured. Directions for future research are discussed.