... to the extent you consider one of the most influential and best-researched management books a "cliche and conspiracy."
I'll mention I didn't claim that a CEO rarely knows something a critic doesn't; just that things like the CEO's greater understanding of something like market dynamics are rarely the basis of what is externally perceived to be a "bad" decision by an armchair critic. The basis is usually political dynamics (which most armchair critics have far less insight into than the CEO -- the information gap is greater).
And as a shareholder, I can say I don't think my intelligence matters very much in this story. The amount of time and thought I can put into each company in my portfolio is what matters. That's both especially true because I have index funds, and why I have index funds.
As a footnote, if you'd like a more extreme take on this, Pfeffer's Power is a good read (but quite controversial -- the book basically makes the claim that CEOs are fundamentally psychopaths). Pfeffer is at Stanford.
Dictator's Handbook is considered hardly controversial at all. It's a game-theoretic argument, backed by pretty good data. The author is at New York University.
I'll also mention that simply insulting the poster of an argument ("just exists in the imagination of people whose involvement with business decisions consists of reading Dilbert cartoons") doesn't strengthen your point. You know nothing about my background. It just makes you look like you're either a jerk, or ran out of sound arguments.