Company politics bog down Market Velocity attainment

I was reminded of the negative impact politics can have on gaining market traction (if people are focused internally, they limit their opportunity to learn from and sell to customers, partners, etc.). Why does it seem that company politics are more common in "BigCos" and how do you avoid it whether you are in a BigCo vs. LittleCo? When my partners and I were chatting with Mark Leslie (ex-Veritas CEO), he shared some insights on how he kept politics largely out of Veritas even as it grew dramatically in size. His view is that people trying to control access to information is usually the seedcorn of company politics. He combated that by having extremely open communications (short of violating SEC rules) with his employees. Even when it's bad news, sharing information builds trust in management. With the rise of blogs and the like, we are living in an ever more transparent world (though there are plenty of holdouts :)). Lack of transparency, I'm convinced, will become an impediment to hiring quality people.