The implied rule is that the bigger the risk the bigger the potential pay off. This is not true in many situations - for example it is a big risk to run blind fold across the road for essentially no pay off - even when you dont get hit by a truck.

If your company is not flexible enough to offer rewards to encourage high pay off risk taking then there is no upside for an individual employee - if company gets the benefit and the employee gets at best a pat on the back why would any rational person stick their neck out?