Consumer's role in cultural industry promotion : a case study of China's ceramic industry

Abstract

Cultural industries are highly relevant to the economic, social, and cultural development. Cultural industries directly and indirectly affect sustainable urban development and city governance. In particular, the cultural industry exerts a direct and positive impact on the socioeconomic development of a city. Booming cultural industries can directly benefit a city in the short term. In the long term, the cultural industry satisfies a city’s needs for talented people and innovative research and development (R&D) for future potential development. The role of the cultural industry has, is, and will be crucial in city development and, ultimately, national strategy. China’s concept of the cultural industry was only officially introduced recently. After the state-supplier dyad in the early “engineer” model period and the changing market environment in the post-reform period, the Chinese cultural industry has entered into a new period with diverging local responses. This study investigates the role of consumers in the development of the Chinese cultural industry and the interactions of this actor with the government and supplier in the triad model. Specifically, the consumer’s involvement in products’ innovation and the cultural industry’s performance are studied. In this thesis, the main analysis methods are (1) provincial-level analysis and (2) two-case comparative analysis. The former provides a view of the arts and crafts category in China at the provincial level. The latter looks further into the sub-sector of the ceramic industry in the two selected ceramic industrial clusters in Jingdezhen and Longquan. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are conducted in the thesis. Three findings are indicated in the study. First, the collaborative integration of the government–supplier–consumer triad with the supportive role of the government benefits the development of the cultural industry. Second, the active participation of consumers in the creation and production of the cultural industry positively influences the open innovation. Last, the local cultural industry’s business environment is crucial to attracting talented people and influencing the values of cultural products and related services. The author enumerates the contributions of this research on the basis of her understanding. This thesis bears two implications. The theoretical implications include contributions to the cultural industries in China and the innovation process of these industries. The empirical implications are on the case studies of the ceramic industry, which belongs to the cultural industry in China. With the findings and implications as basis, this study provides recommendations for policymakers, urban planners, developers, individual suppliers of the cultural industries, and consumers as well as the civil society.