Most large organizations end up functioning at all because there are networks of competent, motivated individual that use that kind of favor trading and rule breaking to make the system work despite the bureaucracy. A key part of joining a new large org is to look for one of those networks and prove that you have the skill and attitudes required to get hooked up into that network.
It's amazing how companies can flourish or wither depending on whether the people on those networks end up growing in status and exercising more influence, or marginalized and quitting.
And on the flip side of that you have dysfuncional large orgs where incompetent people get to move up and form networks with others just as incompetent.
It's amazing how companies can flourish or wither depending on whether the people on those networks end up growing in status and exercising more influence, or marginalized and quitting.