I'm confused as to what you think work is. Managers are just hirelings as well. They have different responsibilities, which includes effective delegation. If you think "ownership" of a process is just a trick to get employees to work, what's the alternative here? You're responsible for the outcomes of this process but don't own it and thus can't guide the direction of it? That sounds patently terrible.

The benefit of owning a process is the control you have over it. I can't tell you how many times I've heard engineers bitch about the decisions made over their head that they have to conform to. But now engineers apparently are just going to bitch if given control over the process. There's no winning with some of you.