“The fundamental issue is that in almost all larger companies, upper management does not trust that their employees are either intrinsically motivated to do a good job, or are smart enough to determine what "a good job" is.”

That’s what i have concluded a long time ago. Upper management has a deep distrust of their employees and acts accordingly. They will hire consultants or external people before they will listen to their employees. I think part of it is that a lot of them don’t really believe in anything themselves and only blindly try to fulfill goals set by their CEO or board of directors.