Michael Coté has written an excellent post describing seven anti-patterns of behaviour in big organisations.
Number six is a particularly egregious crime, in my view:
Pay people to ignore them — BigCo’s love hiring new employees, paying them well, and then rarely listening to them. Instead, you hire outsiders and consultants who say similar things, but are listened to. In fact, the first task of any good management consultant team is to go interview all those bright, but ignored, employees you have and ask them what they’d do. The lesson is to track how many ideas come internally vs. externally and, rather than just blame your people for low internal idea generation, ask yourself if you’re just not listening.
Go read the whole lot – it’s good stuff.