In any big business, there are deadlines to meet. Tasks are piled on and heads roll when deadlines are missed. In the Computer Science field, I believe this is most prevalent. Big business has always been about doing things in the most effective and cost efficient way and with the current state of computer programs, the brunt of this optimization falls into the lap of programmers. The bottom rung of the developmental tree are the developers themselves.
What I mean by this is that the ideas flow down from the top-- These higher-ups are in charge of putting a deadline on something that they probably know very little about. Let's say they want the pen and paper system to be overhauled to implement a user-friendly database. So, they know what they want and they know when they want it by (let's say two weeks from now) but they don't consider the how that needs to be figured out in order to achieve functionality. Programming is a black box affair where the user interface makes the program simple to use but has thousands of lines of code running in the background to make it all work. There is no appreciation for the complexity of the process
Before a developer can overhaul a system, he/she must fully understand the functionality of the current system at hand and are given not so much as a flow chart outlining how it should work. If the higher-ups aren't willing to take the time to outline the system, how can the blame for missed deadlines be placed in the laps of the developers? It takes time to not only learn the current system better than anyone, but then to implement the required changes to the system and thoroughly test and retest for bugs. Instead of making an "executive decision" on how long a project should take, maybe the boss should sit down with the developers and work with them to contrive a game plan based on the programmer's opinions
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