Exploring the cultural and creative promotion performance in Taiwan: A network-based ranking approach

Since the last few years, the Taiwanese government has been promoting the cultural and creative industries, causing the industries in Taiwan to grow rapidly. This study utilizes data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate the cultural and creative promotion performance of cities/counties in Taiwan. Furthermore, the DEA and network-based approach are combined not only to identify the most important inputs/outputs, but also to identify cities/counties that can be treated as benchmarks. This study confirms the effect of the economic gap between urban and rural areas on the promotion and development of the cultural and creative industries in Taiwan. The cultural and creative promotions in the urban areas are found to be superior to those in the rural areas in Taiwan. In addition, the cultural and creative industries in the northern Taiwan are found to be superior to those in the other areas in Taiwan. This study offers some recommendations for managers in cultural and creative departments in their decision-makings; following which will mitigate the gap between resources available in urban and rural areas and facilitate balanced development of the cultural and creative industries in Taiwan.