The owners (or, for public companies - which most companies aren't - voting shareholders) are free to select whatever criteria they want for CEOs and appoint wh

The owners (or, for public companies - which most companies aren't - voting shareholders) are free to select whatever criteria they want for CEOs and appoint whomever they want. If selecting a highly-relational project manager with a decade at the company would allow them to save a lot of money, they can try that out and potentially outcompete other companies due to slightly lower costs; and if selecting a very expensive outside CEO saves them some worry, that's a "service" they can choose to buy. If in the end the performance is the same and it's a waste of money, in the end it's their money (not, for example, the workers) to waste as they wish.