that do express opinions and ideas." One obvious cause of employee silence is constant negative feedback from supervisors. When an employee gives a supervisor a suggestion and is shot down, employee silence is developed in an organization. Over time employees start to feel that every time they make a suggestion it will not be taken into consideration or will be rejected. A result of this is called a dissenting voice, which contributes to employee silence. The dissenting voice is that of the supervisor shooting someone down. Supervisors, leaders, and managers alike can avoid the occurrence of a dissenting voice among employees by monitoring their management style. Cooperative styles such as "integrating, obliging, and compromising" are more effective than "avoiding and dominating" styles, which could cause silence among employees (Colquitt and Greenberg 312). Another reason employee silence occurs is because people fear that if they speak up they may lose their jobs. In some cases subordinates don't want to appear as though they are going against their supervisors, as they may view the employees' input as criticism of their practices, and be fired. This is especially true of organizations which have just experienced layoffs. In these cases, employees fear that their jobs could be taken away and are even less likely to voice their opinions than they did in the first place. Another cause of employee silence is when supervisors and employees fail to address problems. Avoiding problems or looking for "quick fixes" only makes things worse and causes employees to feel that there is no hope for resolution. If employees lose hope that the real problems will actually be addressed and resolved, it can lead to a host of problems for the organization and for the employee, one of which is continued employee silence. Employees then start to feel it is better to remain silent about issues because nothing will change anyway. If companies want to be successful they need to confront the actual problem and fix it. Both employee and supervisor need to deal with the situation because employee silence usually stems from higher management down to lower level employees, which is the cause of the indifferent employee. Discursive formations A discursive formation is defined as the regularities that produce such discourse. Discourse (acts of speaking and writing) is the medium by which an individual's behavior is framed for him/her and others. We are who we are, based on