Universities – the intellectual marketplaces that give voices and ideas a space to flourish – represent the very epitome of the ideal civil society. As institutions that socialize citizens, universities shoulder the responsibility to promote critical thinking and respectful expressions of opinions in their communities. However, communicative practices within universities can also perpetuate power imbalance and dismiss meaningful opinions. Despite the importance of organizational power in organizational scholarship and the significance of universities as culture-shaping institutions, scholars have conveniently paid scant attention to communicative practices that define, distribute, and dissipate power in universities. Guided by Plato’s Theory of Forms and the Allegory of the Cave, this interpretive study reports how university staff made sense of their silenced voices and their sense of futility.

大学是赋予声音和思想发展的空间的知识市场，代表了理想的公民社会的缩影。作为使公民社会化的机构，大学肩负着在社区中促进批判性思维和尊重的观点表达的责任。但是，大学内部的交流实践也可以使权力失衡永久化并消除有意义的意见。尽管组织权力对组织奖学金的重要性以及大学作为文化塑造机构的重要性，但是学者们便利地很少关注定义，分配和消散大学权力的交流实践。在柏拉图的形式理论和洞穴寓言的指导下，