Keeping Teachers in the Dark Predicts Quiet Quitting, Survey Finds

Teachers who perceive their school administrators as practicing “mushroom management” — keeping staff uninformed and excluded from decision-making — are more likely to engage in quiet quitting, according to a quantitative study of public school teachers in Türkiye published in BMC Psychology. Quiet quitting describes employees who perform only their mandatory duties without resigning, avoiding extra effort at work. The research, framed by Social Exchange Theory and Psychological Contract Theory, examined how closely this restrictive leadership style tracks with that disengaged behavior among teachers.

The study used a correlational survey design and drew on a sample of 460 teachers selected through simple random sampling from all seven geographical regions of Türkiye. Data were collected with two instruments, the Mushroom Management Scale and the Teachers’ Quiet Quitting Scale, and analyzed using correlation and regression techniques. Because the design is cross-sectional and correlational, the findings show associations between perceived management style and reported behavior rather than demonstrating that one directly causes the other.

The descriptive results offer a broadly reassuring picture of the sampled workforce. Teachers’ perceptions of mushroom management style were generally low overall, although perceptions were moderate for the dimension concerning information sharing and communication. Quiet quitting behaviors were generally very low, and the subdimension of depersonalization also registered at a low level, indicating that most respondents reported remaining engaged with their work rather than withdrawing from it.

Despite these low absolute levels, the statistical relationship between the two constructs was clear. The analysis identified a moderate, positive, and statistically significant association between teachers’ perceptions of mushroom management and their quiet quitting behavior: the more teachers felt kept uninformed and excluded from decisions, the more they reported disengaging from effort beyond their mandatory duties. Regression results went further, showing that mushroom management style emerged as a significant predictor of quiet quitting behavior in the sample.

The authors frame the study within Social Exchange Theory and Psychological Contract Theory, two perspectives commonly used to understand workplace relationships between employees and their organizations. The article itself does not test the specific mechanisms through which these theories might operate, so the link between the theoretical framing and the observed association remains an interpretive context rather than a demonstrated pathway in the data.

The authors present the findings as carrying implications for practice and propose directions for future research, as noted in the article’s conclusions. Because the study is cross-sectional and correlational, the results cannot establish whether restrictive management precedes quiet quitting, whether disengaged teachers come to perceive their managers more negatively, or whether both patterns reflect broader school conditions. The self-reported measures also capture perceptions rather than independently observed behavior.

For school systems, the study adds evidence that how information is handled within an organization may relate to workforce engagement. In this large sample of Turkish teachers, the leadership style that withholds information and involvement was significantly linked to the quiet withdrawal of effort — a relationship that persisted even though both phenomena were reported at low levels overall.

Subject of Research: Mushroom management style as a predictor of quiet quitting behavior among public school teachers in Türkiye

Article Title: Mushroom management style as a predictor of teachers’ quiet quitting behavior

Article References: Meriç, E. (2026). Mushroom management style as a predictor of teachers’ quiet quitting behavior. BMC Psychology, 14(1), Article 1322. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05447-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05447-9

Keywords: mushroom management, quiet quitting, teachers, school leadership, organizational behavior, social exchange theory, psychological contract, correlational study, Türkiye, workplace engagement, Mushroom, management