Qualitative assessment of the development of creative industries in emerging countries: The case of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The creative industries sector is snowballing, and many developing countries see it as a tool for national and local development. Given the regional specificity, political narratives adopted in developed countries may not apply in economies under transition. This paper aims to evaluate the current state of creative business in emerging countries such as Kazakhstan. Adopting the design of a qualitative method, 34 semi-structured interviews were conducted with entrepreneurs and owners of small and medium-sized businesses in Kazakhstan’s creative industries. The Nvivo 10 qualitative data analysis software was used for processing the data. The interviews help to understand better the factors affecting the development of the creative industry. In general, results indicate insufficient support from government agencies, lack of accessible resources to support entrepreneurs (65% of respondents used their capital, while 17% of them were forced to apply for loans from a bank), information availability, and skills shortage. Shortage of skills is also related to the creative brain drain in Kazakhstan. One of the main problems is access to materials and technology since most of the resources are foreign-made and imported. AcknowledgmentThe authors appreciate the grant funding for young scientists Scientific and (or) in the years 2020–2022 the MES science project number AR08052483 “Creative Industries: methodological aspects of classification and quantitative measurements in the Republic of Kazakhstan” in the framework of the budget program 217 “Development of science”.