Parkinson's law and Peter's Principle apply to privately held corporate structures as well. There's whole mountains of busywork and paperwork related to hierarchical structures that give the impression of "work" to both outsiders and insiders where it's really just non-productive paper shovelling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law

Mind you, I'm not sure getting rid of the managerial staff is enough to address these problems fully.