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Exploring the Pathways to High-Quality Development of Agricultural Enterprises from an Institutional Logic Perspective: A Systemic Configurational Analysis

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: High-quality development of agricultural enterprises is essential for China’s rural revitalization, yet the institutional conditions that support it remain poorly understood. Drawing on institutional logics and configuration theory, this study adopts a holistic systems perspective to examine how government, market, and social institutions interact to shape enterprise performance. Using provincial data (2013–2023) matched with firm-level data for 119 listed agricultural enterprises, we estimate total factor productivity as the core outcome and apply dynamic fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (dynamic fsQCA) to identify equifinal institutional pathways. The results reveal that high-quality development is an emergent property of complex institutional systems; instead, high-quality development emerges from several distinct configurations combining policy support, marketization, financial development, Agricultural Infrastructure Index, market stability, and urban–rural integration. Two contrasting configurations are associated with non-high-quality development, characterized by financial scarcity and infrastructure deficits or by fragmented policy support under weak regulation. Dynamic analysis further reveals clear temporal and spatial heterogeneity: some market–finance driven paths lose robustness over time, while policy–urbanization and regulation–infrastructure based configurations become increasingly stable. These findings extend institutional configuration research to the agricultural sector, demonstrate the value of dynamic fsQCA for capturing temporal effects, and offer differentiated policy implications for optimizing institutional environments to foster the high-quality development of agricultural enterprises.

Source: Sustainability

DOI: 10.3390/su18020853

Authors: Xianyun Wu, Xihao Chang, Shihui Yu

Institution: Dalian Polytechnic University

Language: English

Topic: Regional Development and Environment

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Zero hunger, Decent work and economic growth, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,896