Streamlining governance: How the “One Matter Initiative” reduces administrative burden and optimizes the regulatory climate in cities

Administrative burden has emerged as a critical lens for understanding the unintended consequences of public service delivery and regulatory practices. While the concept has been extensively applied to analyze citizen–state interactions, less attention has been paid to how administrative burden affects private actors. This study addresses this gap by extending administrative burden theory to the domain of public–private partnerships, with a focus on how “one matter initiatives” in developing countries can alleviate regulatory barriers. Drawing on firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, we examine whether and how streamlining governance reduces administrative burden and improves the regulatory climate. The empirical results show that streamlining governance significantly reduces administrative burden and enhances the regulatory climate. These effects are more pronounced for small and medium-sized enterprises, underscoring the reform's distributional impact. Mediation analysis shows that administrative burden serves as a key mechanism through which reform initiatives influence business perceptions of government performance. The findings highlight the relevance of administrative burden theory in non-Western governance contexts and demonstrate the value of incorporating business perspectives into public administration research. By offering empirical evidence from China’s “One Matter Initiative”, this study contributes to a more global and nuanced understanding of how streamlining governance can foster a more enabling environment for enterprise development. Points for practitioners This study highlights that streamlining administrative procedures through initiatives like China’s “One Matter Initiative” significantly reduces administrative burden. For practitioners, the findings suggest that procedural simplification can effectively improve public–private partnerships, particularly in non-Western governance systems. Focusing on service coordination and reducing transaction friction is key to responsive and business-oriented public administration. Megacity Governance in China shows how reform-driven streamlining governance can reshape regulatory practices. The “One Matter Initiative” demonstrates that reducing administrative burden is not only a technical efficiency but also a strategic step toward building good city governance. For practitioners, the key lesson is that coordinated service delivery and burden reduction carry broader significance: they reinforce city governance capacity and offer a replicable model for reform in other contexts.