Singular or plural? Administrative burden and doing business in China

Abstract

Under what configuration of factors does administrative reform improve a business environment? What role does administrative burden play in government-business interactions? This article approaches these questions by examining the configuration of administrative reforms in the Chinese context and exploring administrative burden reduction through a new analytic framework. By analyzing provincial empirical data with the fsQCA method, we found that administrative reform could help improve a business environment by way of three pathways: the balance-developed path, the reform-oriented path, and the resource-driven path. Promoting a business environment is plural rather than singular. And, administrative burden reduction is the mechanism underlying this process. This configuration study of administrative reform and business environment construction in China not only adds to our understanding of administrative burden theory but also offers practitioners several pathways towards a higher quality business environment.

Keywords:

• Administrative burden
• doing business
• run at most once
• administrative reform
• configurational analysis

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks advices from Chunkui Zhu, Lee Jung Nam and Tom Christensen.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Notes

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Additional information

Funding

The author is grateful to financial support from Fudan University “Zhuo Yue” Ph.D. candidate plan [SXH3056051/010/001].

Notes on contributors

Liao Fuchong

Liao Fuchong is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Public Administration, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. Liao’s research focus on the Chinese administrative reform, especially reform effect towards the business environment, with quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as qualitative comparative analysis.