Antecedents, Consequences and Strategies for Managing Moonlighting in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) Environment. A Case of State Universities

This paper examines moonlighting, its causes and effects in the workplace among tertiary institutions in Bulawayo and Matebeleland North provinces in Zimbabwe. The study analyses academic institutions to identify the challenges that they encounter in managing employees engaged in moonlighting and seeks to determine the strategies put in place to manage the phenomenon in the workplace. The study is guided by the self-efficacy theory. It utilizes qualitative methods of research in gathering and analyzing the data. The sample size of this study was determined by the level of saturation obtained from the target population and from the workforce from selected tertiary institutions. The study used semi-structured in-depth interviews and key informant interviews; the number of participants was determined by saturation. Thirty employees from the selected institutions were interviewed, and three key informant interviews were conducted. Upon reaching the 30th participant and the 3rd key informant, there was no new information obtained from the field data. Hence, the sample size of the study was 30 participants and 3 key informants. The study finds that environmental factors like the topsy-turvy economic environment of the country, which is characterized by hyperinflation, stagflation, and deflated income, have cultivated job insecurities and the increased cost of living, to be the major cause of the explosion of the moonlighting phenomenon in both the academic institutions studied. Furthermore, personal and behavioral factors like the need to acquire and utilize skills, the need to prove capabilities, lack of growth and promotion opportunities, family responsibility, retirement factors, lack of recognition and motivation in the primary job, sour employer-employee relations, entrepreneurial opportunities and the pressure exerted by diaspora, social factors, the NGO world, intensify moonlighting in the workplace. The effects thereof can be detrimental to both the organization and the individual moonlighters.