[paulus_magnus2]

FAPP, a company is a bunch of people (mostly a bunch of managers who make the decissions) so at some point some manager decided to squeeze his workers beyond reason - this would be bottom up opression. Or perhaps a higher manager wrote the inhumane procedure and a lower level manager implemented it - top down opression.

[camtarn]

From all the stories I've heard, it seems to be a combination of the two: most of the really inhumane stuff comes from local managers rather than global policy. However, those managers are just acting to meet unrealistic targets of their own, and when they're reported, nobody above them in the hierarchy seems to care.