Service organization reform at the local level

Service organization reform is an essential component of China’s government reform. Nonetheless, due to ambiguous classification criteria, conflicting goals, and bottom-up resistance, the reform features great regional disparity. Using Guangdong province as a case study, this chapter empirically investigates the cross-level, cross-jurisdictional, and cross-organizational variation of service organization reform at the local level. First, despite the reform, the total number of service organizations has continued to increase from 2016 to 2020 and most of the newly established service organizations are at the county level. Second, eight out of Guangdong’s 21 prefectural-level cities have witnessed a shrinking service organization sector. Third, a closer look at the reform of service organizations affiliated with the municipal-level Ecology and Environment Bureaus shows that most newly registered organizations provide services on either information and technology or education and publicity. Meanwhile, most deregistered organizations are research academies or enforcement teams. © Ceren Ergenc and David S.G. Goodman 2023.