A Review of DEA-based Resource and Cost Allocation models: Implications for services

Data envelopment analysis (DEA), by its design, was not intended for resource allocation but for measuring relative efficiency of decision-making units. Despite this, many researchers have successfully applied this modelling technique to a variety of resource and cost allocation decisions in order to improve operational efficiencies. This paper is a comprehensive review and classification of such articles. The papers were classified by industry and by DEA model-orientation. The findings of this paper show that existing models predominately apply DEA to mass service industries (e.g., banking), thus, revealing the opportunity for researchers to further develop DEA-based resource allocation modelling toward improving the operational efficiencies of other service industries (e.g., professional services). To guide researchers to this end, we offer a discussion of the use of DEA modelling when the service provider and the customer are both resources needing to be allocated, in other words, using DEA to model professional or co-created services

Centralised resource allocation using Lexicographic Goal Programming. Application to the Spanish public university system

Identificador de proyecto: FEDER-UPO UPO-1380624This paper deals with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in centralised settings in which the operating units belong to the same organisation. In such a scenario, a global system-wide perspective may be adopted as regards resource allocation and target setting. In this paper, a new Lexicographic Goal Programming (lexGP) approach is proposed using three priority levels: the aggregated input consumption and output production goals; the input and output goals of the individual operating units; and the technical efficiency of the computed targets. It is assumed that the goals for the overall organisation are established by the Central Decision-Maker (CDM) and that they are consistent with those of the individual operating units. The proposed approach has been applied to the Spanish public university system, comprising 47 institutions. Given the CDM preferences in terms of input and output aggregate goals and relative importance weights, specific technical efficient targets have been computed for each university. The results show that the proposed approach is more suitable than the non-centralised DEA approach and produces targets that are more effective than other centralised resource allocation approaches in the sense that they are much closer to both the aggregate goals of the CDM and the specific goals of each university.Universidad de Sevill

Determining the Optimal Carbon Tax Rate based on Data Envelopment Analysis

Carbon tax policy is widely used to control greenhouse gases and how to determine a suitable carbon tax rate is very important for policy makers considering the trade-off between environmental protection and economic development. In an industry regulated by carbon tax policy, we consider two competing firms who sell ordinary products and green products respectively. In order to promote the firm who sells ordinary product to reduce carbon emissions, the government of China imposes carbon tax on the ordinary products. For the government, three objectives are considered when it makes carbon tax policy. They are increasing the government revenue, reducing the government expenditure and decreasing the carbon emissions. For the firms, it is important to explore their pricing strategies taken into account of the government tax policy. To find an optimal carbon tax rate and to achieve the three objectives simultaneously, we consider this as a multiple criteria decision-making problem. Hence, we propose to use a centralized data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to solve it. We find that when one firm produces ordinary products and the other produces green products, the government may set a high tax rate. While when both firms sell ordinary products, the optimal tax policy for each firm is different and the government may impose a higher tax rate for one firm and a lower tax rate for the other firm

Supply chain management of blood products: a literature review.

This paper presents a review of the literature on inventory and supply chain management of blood products. First, we identify different perspectives on approaches to classifying the existing material. Each perspective is presented as a table in which the classification is displayed. The classification choices are exemplified through the citation of key references or by expounding the features of the perspective. The main contribution of this review is to facilitate the tracing of published work in relevant fields of interest, as well as identifying trends and indicating which areas should be subject to future research.OR in health services; Supply chain management; Inventory; Blood products; Literature review;

Evaluación y rediseño de la red pública educativa. Un análisis centralizado

La eficiencia escolar constituye un tema de interés. El número de publicaciones en este campo de investigación se ha incrementado en los últimos años, al intentar explicar qué características del centro y del entorno influyen en los resultados de los alumnos. A la luz de la Post-New Public Management, el objetivo del trabajo es la evaluación y rediseño, a través de técnicas frontera, de una muestra de centros de la red educativa pública de Catalunya. Los resultados obtenidos indican que sería posible mejorar la red y redistribuir de forma óptima los recursos educativos. También se aporta información útil para la toma de decisiones y la puesta en marcha de programas de mejora en los centros docentes

Cost Constrained Industry Inefficiency

In this paper a definition of industry inefficiency in cost constrained production environments is introduced. This definition uses the indirect directional distance function and quantifies the inefficiency of the industry in terms of the overall output loss, given the industry cost budget. The industry inefficiency indicator is then decomposed into sources components: reallocation inefficiency arising from sub-optimal configuration of the industry; firm inefficiency arising from a failure to select optimal input quantities (given the prevalent inputs prices); firm inefficiency due to lack of best practices. The method is illustrated using data on Ontario electricity distributors. These data show that lack of best practices is only a minor component of the overall inefficiency of the industry (less than 10 percent), with reallocation inefficiency accounting for more than 75 percent of the overall inefficiency of the system. An analysis based on counter-factual input prices is conducted in order to illustrate how the model can be used to estimate the effects of a change in the regulation regime

Do Acquirer Capabilities Affect Acquisition Performance? Examining Strategic and Effectiveness Capabilities in Acquirers

This paper examines acquisition performance from the perspective of acquirer capabilities. It argues that the strategic capabilities underpinning a firm’s competitive strategy can be utilized to create economic value in acquisitions. Acquirers with strong cost leadership capabilities are expected to leverage these capabilities to reduce post-acquisition costs as they integrate acquisition targets. Acquirers with strong differentiation capabilities are expected to utilize their strategic capabilities to increase post-acquisition revenues by improving branding, product design, sales, and services in their targets. We also explore the affect of an acquirer’s effectiveness capabilities on acquisition performance. Lastly, we examine how acquirer’s organize these capabilities, either at the business unit or corporate-level, in order to maximize their affect on acquisition performance. Based on a sample of 204 horizontal acquisitions occurring in the banking industry, we find support for the link between acquirer cost leadership capabilities and post-acquisition cost reduction. Acquirer effectiveness capabilities are associated with improvements in post-acquisition revenues and profitability. We conclude that a better understanding of the competitive capabilities of acquirers is important to understanding acquisition performance. This contributes directly to horizontal acquisition research, but can be extended to several areas of strategy research on M&As including: diversifying acquisitions, acquirer experience, and how acquirers can avoid “synergy traps”.Acquisitions ; Acquirer Capabilities ; Strategic Capabilities ; Effectiveness Capabilities ; Acquisition Performance

Evaluación y rediseño de la red pública educativa : un análisis centralizado

El análisis de eficiencia de los centros escolares constituye un tema de interés actual.El número de publicaciones en este campo de investigación se ha incrementado en lo últimos años, al intentar explicar que ciertas características del centro y del entorno influyen en los resultados de los alumnos. A la luz de la Teoría de la Producción y la Post-New Public Management, el objetivo del trabajo es la evaluación y rediseño, a través de técnicas frontera, de una muestra de centros de la red educativa pública de Catalunya. Los resultados obtenidos determinarán las acciones necesarias que permitan optimizar la red y redistribuir de forma óptima los recursos educativos. Por otro lado, aportarán información útil que ayude a la toma de decisiones por parte de las Administraciones Públicas y a la puesta en marcha de programas de mejora en los centros docentes

The Troika and public administration reform in Greece: the role of the crisis and the power of bureaucracy

Διπλωματική εργασία--Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2018The 2008 global financial crisis has significantly impacted on European societies and economies, including the Greek. Greece, which has been affected by the profound global transformations of the crisis, compared to other Eurozone countries with similar external financial pressures and difficulties, such as Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, is the most problematic case and has been characterized as a unique international paradox . This uniqueness had brought many failings, problems and weaknesses to Greece, ranging from poor labor, product market institutions, massive public debt, low competitiveness, to an underperforming educational system, poor environmental protection and high levels of corruption. Numerous experts’ reports, pieces of academic analysis, and public opinion have identified over the years the malfunctioning of the administrative system in the country. The overall extent of public intervention in the economy as well as society, which has been excessive by any standards and means of comparison, and the long tradition of legalism, formalism, and rigidity of administrative behavior at any level and state’s action aspect are the main factors responsible for this quality deficit. Additionally, the infiltration of the political, or better the party- political concerns into the operation of state agencies as well organizations at the center and the periphery of the country’s administrative machinery does only aggravate the condition of limited professionalism as well as low performance in public administration. Excessive size, political dependence, lack of professionalism and legalistic culture constitute the factors that explain much of the predicament of Greece’s public administration

Efficiency in rail systems through three different approaches and contributions to push the Brazilian rail system toward high performance

Tese (Doutorado em Administração) - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2019Inclui bibliografiaThis research investigates the efficiency of the Brazilian rail cargo system (SFBC, acronym in Portuguese). The importance of the performance of a rail system to the logistics of goods in countries with large territorial dimensions is recognized. However, its role is secondary in Brazil compared to road transport, representing high economic and environmental costs. SFBC is dedicated to the export of mineral and agricultural bulk where it has a significant capacity for insertion. Meanwhile, the SFBC has an insignificant participation in the internal distribution of goods, which is mostly done in highways, including on longer routes. Consequently, the transport sector in Brazil emits twice as much CO2 from buming fuels than the world average. SFBC presents characteristics of a medium performance scenario. The performance of the operators is heterogeneous, benchmarking is an outlier, the average efficiency is low, and the average idleness of the sections is high. To discuss the conditions to achieve a high performance scenario is the main contribution of this thesis. Three researches were done to address this issue. The first one is dedicated to estimate the efficiency of the railway concessionaires in Brazil between 2010-2014 by using Data Envelopment Analysis. In a second stage, the significance of selected variables was assessed through Bootstrap Truncated Regression, including the type of the use of the railway track (shared or monopoly), a gap in the literature. The operators were grouped according to the efficiency scores and the type of returns to scale, and measures to increase the efficiency of the clusters were discussed. The second research has the purpose to explain the heterogeneity found in the average efficiency of the different railway systems in the world, the object of researches done between 2000-2016, through a meta-analysis carried out for the first time onj railways. For greater robustness, Leave-One-Out-Cross-Validation and VVeighted Regression were applied. Public policies induding diversification of services and models for assessing efficiency by regulatory agencies were discussed. The third research is devoted to the efficiency of the SFBC raílway sections and identifies the significant conditions for high and low performance scenarios by combining the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution and a differential evolution algorithm for estimating the weights of variables in optimized scenarios, another gap in the literature. In a second stage, the significance of the variables selected was evaluated. The research shows that the public manager should push the rail companies toward the transportation of any type of cargo, the diversification of services, the centralized control of the operation, and the sharing of the railway track. The competition and diversifìcation are significant for high performance.A pesquisa investiga a eficiência do Sistema Ferroviário Brasileiro de Cargas (SFBC). É reconhecida a importância do desempenho de um sistema ferroviário para a logística de mercadorias em países de grandes dimensões territoriais. Todavia, seu papel é secundário no Brasil frente ao transporte rodoviário, representando custos econômicos e ambientais excedentes. O SFBC se mantém dedicado à exportação de granéis sólidos minerais e agrícolas onde apresenta significativa capacidade de inserção, enquanto é inexpressiva sua participação na distribuição interna de bens, majoritariamente realizada pelo setor rodoviário, inclusive em rotas mais longas. Assim, o setor de transporte no Brasil emite o dobro de CO2 pela queima de combustíveis do que a média mundial. O SFBC apresenta características de um cenário de média performance. O desempenho dos operadores é heterogêneo, o benchmarking é um outlier, a eficiência média é baixa e a ociosidade média das seções é alta. Discutir as condições para alcançar um cenário de alta performance é a principal contribuição da tese. Para atingir esse objetivo, foram realizadas três pesquisas. A primeira se dedica à eficiência dos concessionários ferroviários no Brasil no período 2010-2014, com o uso de Data Envelopment Analysis. Num segundo estágio, através de Bootstrap Truncated Regression, foi avaliada a significância de variáveis selecionadas, incluindo o tipo de uso da via, gap da literatura. Os operadores foram agrupados segundo os resultados de eficiência e o tipo de retornos de escala das operações e medidas para o aumento da eficiência dos clusters foram discutidas. A segunda pesquisa tem por objetivo explicar a heterogeneidade encontrada na eficiência média de diversos sistemas ferroviários no mundo, objeto de pesquisas realizadas entre 2000-2016, através de uma metanálise conduzida pela primeira vez em ferrovias. Para maior robutez, Leave-One-Out-Cross-Validation e Weighted Regression foram utilizadas. Políticas públicas incluindo diversificação e modelos de avaliação de eficiência por órgãos reguladores foram comentadas. A terceira pesquisa se dedica à eficiência das seções ferroviárias e identifica as condições significativas para cenários de alta e baixa performance através da combinação de Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution e de um algoritmo de evolução diferencial para estimar os pesos de variáveis em cenários otimizados, gap da literatura. Num segundo estágio, a significância de variáveis selecionadas foi avaliada. A pesquisa mostra que o gestor público deve empurrar as empresas para o transporte de todo o tipo de carga, a diversificação de serviços, o controle centralizado da operação e o compartilhamento da via. A competição e a diversificação são significativas para a alta performance