International Journal of Education Administration and Policy Studies Vol. 4(10), pp. 198-204, November 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JEAPS DOI: 10.5897/IJEAPS11.061 ISSN 2141 - 6656 ©2011 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Factors that motivate business faculty in Kenya to conduct research Joash Abere Migosi 1 , Stephen O. Migiro 2 * and Paul Ogula 3 1 Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Kenya. 2 Graduate School of Business and Leadership, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. 3 Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya. Accepted November 21, 2011 This study sought to examine the factors that influence research productivity among business academic staff in selected universities in Kenya. Survey research design was employed in this study. Questionnaire was used to collect information from 277 (70.2% male and 29.8% female) university business academic staff. The information was analysed by SPSS (Version 15) which generated descriptive statistics. Factor analysis was used for data reduction, identification and description of the major factors influencing research productivity as noted by respondents. The results from this study indicate that personal career development factors form the main factor influencing research productivity among business academic staff in Kenya. The conclusion made from this study is that the business academic staff’s research productivity is heavily dependent on appropriate skills in research methodology. The main recommendation is for the development and enhancement of national and institutional research policies to guide and manage research in Kenya with clear provisions for improvement of research methodology skills for the business faculty. Key words: Research productivity, publication productivity, research output, professional development, research. INTRODUCTION The current academic climate in higher education in Kenya threatens the ability of Kenyan universities to sustain the conditions that support research productivity. Increased demands on government and private funding, a deteriorating physical infrastructure, increased pressure on undergraduate programmes, university expansion strategies and the general economic climate in the country have raised concerns about the continued capacity of universities to maintain teaching, research productivity and service to the community. This mandates deliberate efforts made to find out the progress made in the research arena at all times. It is through these assessments that a nation can know whether it is making any meaningful scientific progress or not. It is universally accepted that universities are supposed to become more efficient and effective in teaching, *Corresponding author. E-mail: stephen410@gmail.com. research and community service. However, there appears to be many obstructions to research productivity, which in turn causes low levels of research outcomes (Lertputtarak, 2008). In Kenya, for example, the world ranking of local universities has nosedived. This has been partly due to the recent innovation of Module II (evening, weekend classes) in higher education, massification of higher education and aggressive expansion strategies employed by various universities. This has resulted in possibilities of imbalance between available time for teaching and for research roles of the business academic staff in universities. RESEARCH IN KENYA Kenya has been doing well in terms of research and publishing. Ngome (2003) observes that in the 1970s and early 1980s, the volume of research carried out at the University of Nairobi, the oldest and largest public