Examining organizational politics as the cause of the crisis in energy generation in developing countries

Abstract

The majority of state-owned power companies (SoEs) have experienced organizational cancer for nearly three decades without showing any signs of ceasing operations. Academicians generally agree that organizational politics are to blame for the ongoing energy-generating dilemma that has plagued rising nations. Worldwide, economies rely heavily on electricity as an energy source, to the point where they would not function or even survive without it. In order to reduce unfavorable political behavior, this study examines organizational politics at the Zimbabwe Supply Authority, a SoE in charge of energy production. A sample of 1400 individuals who were chosen at random from a population of 2210 staff members participated in the study using a quantitative research approach to collect data. By the deadline, 358 completed questionnaires had been returned; however, 11 of them were rejected because they had been wrongly filled out, with a response rate of 24.78%. The data were analyzed using the statistical tool SPSS 21.0 for Windows. To ensure that the samples were adequate for factor analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's Test of sphericity were applied to the data before exploratory factor analysis could be conducted on them (Field, 2007:619). The results of the study showed that bad political behavior and ineffective managerial leadership techniques had a detrimental impact on the power generation crisis. According to the report, managers should receive training on modern managerial leadership behavior, managerial methods for behavior modification, and improved communication.