Professional regulation, bureaucratic inertia, and the public interest: a social innovation perspective

This paper examines the tension between professional regulation as a mechanism of public protection and regulation as a source of bureaucratic rigidity that may impede socially valuable innovation. Professional regulation is ordinarily justified on the grounds that it promotes safety, fairness, competence, accountability, and public trust. At the same time, regulatory systems may become excessively procedural, resource-intensive, and insufficiently responsive to changing public needs. The paper