Having worked for small indepenently owned businesses, having owned one myself and also having worked for (and currently do) multi-billion dollar public corporations theres a big difference in outlook vis-a-vis long term vs short term. Smaller companies, if not in immediate need of cash flow improvements, tend to have a longer outlook. They aren't driven by quarterly results and the effect of those results on their shareholders stock prices.
Publicly held companies with thousands or tens of thousands of employees can trim their "faceless" workforce to control expenses. It becomes much more personal in a smaller more intimate company. Big companies can weild their market clout to reduce costs, both product and operating where a small company isn't afforded the same luxury. While every company wants to attain customer loyalty, it's far more critical to a small company that may have to charge more for a similar product or service.
In the end a small company only has to answer to it's owner or a small group of owners. As long as they're satisfied with their return on investment then everythings good. A big public company answers to their shareholders, typically thousands or tens of thousands of them and have to act in a way that provides those shareholders with an expected rate of return on thier investments.
All of that is not to say that even in large corporations that there aren't "visionaries", be they individuals, departments, divisions or even executive leadership but the dynamics acting on them are substantially different and ultimately more confining in many ways.
