Organizational climate and research productivity of Academic Staff in Makerere University

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to establish the relationship between each of reward system, peer relationship and rules and regulations on the one hand and research productivity of the academic staff in Makerere University. Cluster sampling was used to get academic staff from the two colleges that served as respondents who filled the self-administered Questionnaires. The study adopted the correlational, cross sectional survey design. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 13. Data analysis at univariate level, that is targeting only one variable at a time was based on relative frequencies from frequency tables and descriptive statistics such as means on age and all mother numerical variables. At bivariate level, all hypotheses were tested by correlating respective numerical aggregate with one of the independent variables (reward system, peer relationship and rules and regulations) with an equally numerical index on the dependent variable (research productivity) using Pearson’s correlation method. On the other hand, qualitative data was presented by reading the verbatim answers in the interview guide and giving them side by side quantitative statistics. The study found out that all the three independent variables namely reward system, peer relationship and rules and regulations were significantly positively correlated with the dependent variable namely research productivity. The study concluded based on the findings that the research productivity of academic staff in the colleges of Education and External Studies and Natural Sciences is influenced by the reward system, peer relationships and rules and regulations in the two colleges. The study recommended that management of the two colleges of Makerere University must review the important reward systems which can affect academic staff’s motivation to be productive in research, more emphasis should be put on the creating research teams and networking between the academic staff while the rules and regulations are maintained as to realize the university’s vision of being a research led university.