MUSHROOM MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Taşkın KILIÇ
Hatun OLGUN

ABSTRACT

The concept of Mushroom Management has been involved in the management science in recent years and is named
after the metaphor of raising mushrooms. Just as mushrooms are fertilized, left in the dark and cultivated in a short
time; mushroom managers also provide the necessary business resources to employees, however, they do not share the
policies, revenues of the organization and business risks with them. The objective of study is to embrace and examine
the concept of mushroom management theoretically, develop an assessment instrument for determining this perception
and bring the concept and the scale in the Turkish literature. The theoretical part was formed by using the limited
number of studies in literature. Field study was conducted by applying a questionnaire to 200 employees at a private
health institution in the province of Trabzon with the help of an 8 point Likert scale, which was developed for
measuring the concept of mushroom management. The acquired data were analyzed by using the SPSS and LISREL
softwares. It was determined that study participants had moderate level of mushroom management perception. 58%
of employees who participated in the study stated that the management did not establish a direct communication
with junior employees and share all the information about the organization. On the other hand, a Turkish scale of
eight items measuring the mushroom management perception was developed within the scope of this study. Besides,
as mushroom management contains total opposite applications of open, democratic, participative and transparent
management applications; it is perceived as a negative approach. However, it might turn into a useful means for
managers in some cases (like preventing chaos, preserving the organization’s confidentiality) in practice.

Keywords: Mushroom Management , Knowledge Asymmetry , One-Way Communication

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