Proposing a Government-Supportive Development Model in the Cultural Domain Using a Mixed-Methods Approach

Abstract

The present study aimed to propose a government-supportive development model in the cultural domain. The research employed a mixed-methods approach. Participants in the qualitative phase included 16 individuals comprising academic elites and senior managers from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, who met the criteria of holding relevant academic backgrounds, having more than 10 years of professional experience, and being knowledgeable in the field of cultural policymaking. In the quantitative phase, the statistical population for the fuzzy Delphi technique—used to screen dimensions, components, and indicators of the study and to determine their significance—consisted of 12 selected experts. Furthermore, in the subsequent stage of the quantitative phase, the statistical population included senior managers of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, from which 128 individuals were selected using simple random sampling. The data collection instruments included semi-structured interviews for the qualitative phase and a researcher-made questionnaire derived from the qualitative findings for the quantitative phase. For data analysis, the study employed thematic framework analysis and thematic network analysis using MAXQDA software in the qualitative phase. In the quantitative phase, fuzzy Delphi, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and the Best-Worst Method (BWM) were used for prioritization, employing SPSS, Smart PLS, and LINGO software. In total, 191 initial codes were extracted from the interview texts, resulting in 57 basic themes related to the development model of government support in the cultural domain. These were subsequently categorized into 17 organizing themes. In the final phase of the analysis, 6 overarching themes emerged based on the organizing themes: budget and financial resources, policymaking and regulations, infrastructure and facilities, education and research, promotion and advertisement, and support for artists and cultural practitioners. According to the fuzzy Delphi results, all factors of the proposed development model for government support in the cultural field were considered significantly important and approved by the domain experts. Subsequently, the path analysis technique revealed that the significance values for all paths between variables exceeded 1.96, and their corresponding significance levels were below 0.05 and even 0.01, indicating that all hypothesized relationships were statistically significant. The prioritization of the indices in the proposed model showed that the dimension of budget and financial resources ranked first with a weight of 0.287; infrastructure and facilities ranked second with a weight of 0.243; policymaking and regulations ranked third with a weight of 0.151; support for artists and cultural practitioners ranked fourth with a weight of 0.139; education and research ranked fifth with a weight of 0.101; and promotion and advertisement ranked sixth with a weight of 0.079.