Large organizations, and particularly government bureaucracies, tend to develop a multitude of procedures and levels of approval through which proposals or applications for change must pass. Frequently decisions must be taken in committees which meet relatively infrequently. This introduces considerable delay in any projects which are dependent on the approval of such bodies.
An official of the State Department of the USA cautioned that the ability of American businessmen to contribute to economic recovery in Russia was severely, if not fatally, hampered by regulatory and fiscal practices, including constantly shifting and confusing laws and regulations and uncertainty about ownership of natural resources.
Sluggish administrative procedures for approving new drugs are claimed to be responsible for unnecessary deaths. In Belgium, the lengthy and complicated registration procedure for new drugs meant an average delay of 1,000 days before the drug was on the market. In the case of a new drug for ovarian cancer, it was estimated that 120 untreated women would die during the registration period.