In the context of high-quality development in China, a high-quality business environment has become an important pillar for the sustainable development of enterprises and other business entities. At the same time, as the sum of external environments faced by enterprises and other entities in economic activities, the business environment has gradually received attention in practice and theory. Therefore, it is crucial to systematically sort out the research focus and potential issues of the business environment for the theoretical development and practical application of this field. Firstly, based on the cost view, resource view, and business ecosystem view, this paper analyzes the similarities and differences of the business environment in terms of connotation, dimension, and function, and summarizes four types of the business environment concept based on the logic of “entity-environment-function”. Secondly, taking “matching the conceptual connotation and value function” as the entry point, it sorts out the effect of the business environment, and concludes the role of the business environment in empowering the value-creation activities of business entities. Thirdly, on the basis of combing the indicator system for measuring the business environment in practice, it outlines the dimension division and data sources of the business environment in China’s existing research. Finally, it puts forward an outlook on the future research of the business environment in China, including clarifying core concepts and improving indicator systems, so as to provide new ideas for the subsequent theoretical development in the field of the business environment.