Electricity is a fundamental driver of economic development, yet state-owned electricity providers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have struggled with chronic power generation shortfalls for nearly three decades. This crisis, particularly pronounced in Zimbabwe, is increasingly attributed to rampant organisational politics. This study investigates employee perceptions and the effects of organisational politics on state-owned electricity utilities and explores managerial practices aimed at minimising such negative political behaviours. A quantitative research approach was adopted, using a structured Likert-scale questionnaire distributed to a randomly selected sample of 1,400 employees from a population of 2,210. Of the returned 358 questionnaires, 347 were valid, yielding a 24.78% effective response rate. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 21.0, and exploratory factor analysis was performed to develop a conceptual framework. The results identified four key political behaviour factors: managerial behaviour, poor communication of objectives, unexpected employee actions, and unhealthy managerial practices. Additionally, three consequences of organisational politics and two clusters of managerial mitigation strategies—fairness and participation—were extracted. The study proposes a conceptual model to manage organisational politics in Zimbabwe’s electricity sector, with potential applicability to other state-owned utilities across the SADC region. The model underscores the imperative for political sensitivity, transparent communication, and inclusive managerial practices to improve organisational performance and energy delivery.
Emmanuel Mutambara (Tue,) studied this question.