During my tenure, the company ownership was a revolving door of holding companies. There seemed to be a different management team every two years, so regardless of what management said, the rank and file simply continued to do whatever they wanted because they knew the "new" team would be gone before they ever figured out that they were being ignored. Also, as is often the case with large organizations, upper management made decisions from "on high" that seemed pretty comical (or frustrating, depending on the day) to the folks who had to implement them on the grassroots level.
It seemed that the mid to upper managers were very good at preening and posturing, but hopelessly inept at anything other than justifying their existence with endless busywork.