> Why would shareholders, the board and the CEO waste so much money on paying consultancies when the only value is being able to pass blame? Management does it

> Why would shareholders, the board and the CEO waste so much money on paying consultancies when the only value is being able to pass blame? Management does it in large part to provide external validation (most importantly to the board and shareholders) of the decisions they sought to take anyway. The board and shareholders accept it because the external validation works exactly the way management intends it to. (There's also cases where using independent consultants as part of some process is a compliance checkbox thing, and in those cases they are used for that specific reason.)