> However, it is generally agreed that operating with scapegoats is both morally bad and bad for productivity (and the same goes for giving people responsibility without accountability), so responsibility and accountability aren't supposed to be separate concepts.

I'd argue that higher management is usually accountable, but not responsible. Like, they can't guarantee fulfillment of the individual pieces of the work, but are still accountable for the whole effort anyway.

(this is going by the dictionary definition that responsibility is "task-oriented")