I've worked in startups and large ivy league universities... the latter has more focus on social capital than necessarily delivering value or customer service because there is less survival risk, so the emphasis is on social organizational capital (family-like, countryclub departments) than monetary profit (except for university profit-centers). I've also seen massive corruption, empire building, laughable leadership cognitive dissonance, waste, privacy disasters and embezzlement at one university which shall go nameless.

It's true that the fights can be so brutal because the stakes are often so small.

There are some exceptions where good leadership and teams exist and deliver worthy value without economic or social forces, but these are outliers.