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.