This study estimated the direct and indirect contributions of mentorship and institutional support (IS) to academic staff's research productivity (RP) at a public university in Cross River State. Two mediator variables—collaboration and institutional culture (IC), were introduced to determine their roles in the nexus between the predictors and the criterion variables. The quantitative research method was adopted following the correlational research design. “Career Empowerment and Research Productivity Questionnaire (CERPQ)” was used for data collection after validation by experts and reliability test. Three hundred twenty-seven copies of the CERPQ were administered, but 303 were retrieved. Mediation-based analysis was performed using structural equation modelling following the research questions and hypotheses. Amongst others, findings revealed that mentorship had a non-significant negative contribution to the RP of academic staff; mentorship only promoted RP among academic staff when it was followed by positive IC and collaboration. IS had a non-significant positive contribution to the RP of academic staff. The joint mediation of collaboration and IC was significant in the nexus between mentorship and RP and between IS and RP of academic staff in the public university. Collaboration was the most important factor directly associated with the RP of academic staff and also partially mediated the contributions of other variables (such as mentorship and IS) to the RP of academic staff. The results of this study can be useful for universities seeking to enhance the research productivity of their academic staff. The study highlights the importance of considering multiple factors that may influence research productivity and suggests that institutions should prioritise fostering a supportive and collaborative environment for academic staff to maximise their research productivity. The study can also inform the development of mentorship programmes and the creation of institutional policies that support and promote research productivity.

本研究估计了指导和机构支持 (IS) 对克罗斯河州一所公立大学学术人员研究生产力 (RP) 的直接和间接贡献。引入了两个中介变量——协作和制度文化 (IC)，以确定它们在预测变量和标准变量之间的关系中的作用。按照相关研究设计，采用定量研究方法。经专家验证和可靠性测试后，采用“职业赋能与研究生产力问卷（CERPQ）”进行数据收集。管理了 327 份 CERPQ，但收回了 303 份。根据研究问题和假设，使用结构方程模型进行基于中介的分析。在其他人中，调查结果显示，导师制对学术人员的 RP 没有显着的负面影响；只有在积极的 IC 和协作之后，导师制才会在学术人员中促进 RP。IS 对学术人员的 RP 有非显着的积极贡献。协作和 IC 的联合调解在公立大学学术人员的指导和 RP 之间以及 IS 和 RP 之间的联系中具有重要意义。合作是与学术人员 RP 直接相关的最重要因素，并且部分调节其他变量（如指导和 IS）对学术人员 RP 的贡献。这项研究的结果对于寻求提高学术人员研究生产力的大学很有用。该研究强调了考虑可能影响研究生产力的多种因素的重要性，并建议机构应优先为学术人员营造一个支持和协作的环境，以最大限度地提高他们的研究生产力。该研究还可以为指导计划的发展和支持和促进研究生产力的机构政策的制定提供信息。