A CRITIC-I-TOPSIS Approach to Assess Public Satisfaction with Cultural Services in Urban Communities

[Purpose] This paper aims to propose a multi-criteria evaluation method for assessing public cultural service quality satisfaction in urban communities. The method is validated by evaluating satisfaction with public cultural service quality in the Baihe Yuan community of Nanan District, Chongqing, China. The study also explores the factors influencing public cultural service quality satisfaction in this community. Evaluating satisfaction with public cultural service quality requires assessment across multiple dimensions, making it a classic multi-criteria decision-making problem. [Design/methodology/approach] In the evaluation process, we utilized the CRITIC method to determine the weights of influencing factors and the I-TOPSIS-Sort method to assess the factors affecting public cultural service quality satisfaction in this area. Among them, I-TOPSIS-Sort is a multi-criteria sorting method improved in this study. [Findings] The research findings indicate that the factor of greatest concern to residents of Baiheyuan Community in Nan’an District is “Equipment for Community Cultural Services,†while the least concerning indicator is “Personnel of Community Public Cultural Services.†Furthermore, in terms of evaluation ratings, all indicators for this community were classified as C, except for “Personnel of Community Public Cultural Services,†which was categorized as D. This suggests that residents of the community are generally satisfied with the quality of public cultural services. However, there is still room for improvement in the quality of public cultural services in the community. [Practical Implication] This study focuses on Baiheyuan Community in Nan’an District as the research subject and improves the CRITIC and I-TOPSIS-Sort methods to evaluate the satisfaction level of public cultural service quality in the community. This research is beneficial for assisting policymakers and decision-makers in assessing the quality of public cultural services, thereby aiding them in policy formulation and decision-making. Ultimately, it aims to further refine management systems and better meet the public cultural service needs of residents. [Originality/value] This paper evaluates public cultural service quality satisfaction in urban communities using the CRITIC-I-TOPSIS-Sort method to address the contradictions between the increasing public cultural demands and the original supply. Among them, CRITIC-I-TOPSIS-Sort is the multi-criteria sorting framework proposed in this study.