My sense is people generally separate their work into, "Tasks I like to do" and "Administrative overhead". For small companies, being nimble is more important

My sense is people generally separate their work into, "Tasks I like to do" and "Administrative overhead". For small companies, being nimble is more important than scale or coordination, so the overhead takes a back seat. To use Lean Startup lingo, until you have product-market fit, scale and coordination isn't a concern. Once you have product-market fit, then coordination and scale matters. Understanding how people are spending their time is important for service companies to understand billing, and product companies to understand if people are working on the right priorities. It also helps estimation. I've seen very talented people that are loath to enter time reports. I've seen companies lose money because talented expensive consultants didn't bother getting it in on time. My suspicion is there are a subset of people who just don't want to be bothered. The best seats for them are small non-consulting firms that are focused more on market response than scaling or coordinating. It's not a judgment call, it's more about going where their mentality fits best. (It took me a long time to realize this in my own career)