The Performance Evaluation Of Public Cultural Services Empirical Research Based On DEA Method

As an important measure in the implement of the national "cultural power" strategy, the construction of public cultural services has been attached great importance to by the State and local government. A series of policies have been carried out, and sufficient investment has been made in the human, financial, material and other aspects. While making a large amount of investment is crucial to the construction of public cultural services, it is also vital to establish a scientific system of performance evaluation, for this provides a solid foundation and key support for the optimization of the structure as well as the forces of resources.However, the supply and demand of public cultural services in the market has a prevailing lack of competition. The external and inseparable nature of public cultural services makes it very difficult to be measured. Furthermore, the availability, authenticity and comparability of public cultural services data all makes the qualitative as well as quantitative performance evaluation of public cultural services very difficult and very challenging.DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) is a method based on the relative efficiency that is aimed at evaluating efficiency. Due to its objectivity, convenience, economy, and high productivity, this method has drawn many researchers’attention, and was introduced to evaluate the performance of public services in the field of culture. From the available academic literature, it can be concluded that this is a less explored field, with the construction of its index system, the model selection method, optimization, analysis, as well as the evaluation of reliability of the results still demand much needed analysis and research.This paper firstly summarizes performance evaluation, public cultural services, Data Envelopment Analysis and other relevant theories. The paper then analyzes the challenge faced by public cultural service performance evaluation as well as the advantages, problems and solutions of applying DEA method for the performance of public cultural services evaluation. The paper then suggests a general framework of evaluating public cultural service performance that consists of public cultural service performance evaluation index system, method and application systems and other components. To test the credibility of this framework, museums, public libraries and cultural centers are employed as typical research targets to further establish a comprehensive and efficient evaluating system. Lastly, based on the official2012data of selected museums, public libraries and cultural centers, a comprehensive and empirical research of performance evaluation is conducted to optimize the DEA model of public cultural services performance evaluation.The innovation of this paper mainly lies in three aspects. Firstly, a systematic and comprehensive public cultural services performance evaluation theoretical framework has been established, which include the index system, the standard system, the method system, the analysis system as well as the final results application system. Secondly, the research employs data of selected museums as well as cultural centers, which takes the diversities between different types of public cultural services into consideration, thus making the conclusion of the research more reliable. Thirdly, C2R model and super efficiency model are both introduced and employed in the analysis of features of public cultural services so as to cover various aspects of the services, therefore making the evaluation more comprehensive.