Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-136). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-209).

H ετερογένεια που χαρακτηρίζει τις τεχνολογίες των επιχειρήσεων που εντάσσονται σε διαφορετικά σύνολα και ενσωματώνουν στο τεχνολογικό τους σύνολο μια καινοτομία, δημιουργεί προβλήματα στην εκτίμηση της συνολικής παραγωγικότητας των εισροών (TFP). Σε αυτή την περίπτωση οι όποιες μεταβολές της παραγωγικής αποτελεσματικότητας, τεχνικής και κλίμακας, συναρτώνται άμεσα με τους ρυθμούς τεχνολογικής αλλαγής και ταυτόχρονα εξαρτώνται από τις διαφορές παραγωγικότητας και αποτελεσματικότητας των κλάδων που ανήκουν οι επιχειρήσεις. Στην διεθνή βιβλιογραφία το παραπάνω ζήτημα έχει αντιμετωπιστεί από αρκετούς ερευνητές (Battese et al., 2002; 2004, Orea and Kumbhakar, 2004; Caudill, 2003). Ωστόσο σε μια πρόσφατη έρευνα (Kounetas, Mourtos and Tsekouras, 2009) παρουσιάζεται ένα αναλυτικό μεθοδολογικό πλαίσιο που επιτρέπει, καταρχάς την εκτίμηση της διαφοράς των τεχνολογιών στις οποίες εντάσσονται οι επιχειρήσεις και στη συνέχεια αποτυπώνει τις όποιες μεταβολές μπορεί να επιφέρει η ενσωμάτωση των καινοτομιών, νέων τεχνολογιών κ.λ.π. στα επιμέρους συστατικά της παραγωγικότητας. Σκοπός αυτής της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η ανάπτυξη ενός αλγορίθμου που θα βασίζεται στο μεθοδολογικό αυτό πλαίσιο και θα εκτιμά την αποτελεσματικότητα επιχειρήσεων που λειτουργούν υπό διαφορετικά τεχνολογικά καθεστώτα και θα υπολογίζει εφόσον υπάρχουν τα τεχνολογικά χάσματα σε οποιοδήποτε από τα εξεταζόμενα επίπεδα τεχνολογικής ετερογένειας. / Ηeterogeneity that characterizes the technologies of enterprises that are included in different totals and incorporate in their technology a innovation, creates problems in the estimation of total productivity of inputs (TFP). In this case any changes of technical and scale productivity, are associated immediately with the rate of technological change and simultaneously depend from the differences of productivity and effectiveness of sectors that belongs the enterprises. In the international bibliography the above question has been faced by enough researchers (Battese et al., 2002;.2004, Orea and Kumbhakar, 2004 Caudill, 2003). However in a recent research (Kounetas, Mourtos and Tsekouras, 2009) is presented an analytic methodological frame that allows, firstly the estimation of the difference of technologies that belong the enterprises and then impress any changes that can effect the incorporation of innovations, new technologies etc in the individual components of productivity. Aim of this is the development of an algorithm that will be based on this methodological frame and will appreciate the effectiveness of enterprises that functions under different technological arrangements and will calculate, provided that exist, the technological gaps in anyone from the examined levels of technological heterogeneity.

Η παρούσα μελέτη εκπονήθηκε στα πλαίσια του Προγράμματος Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών «Νέες Αρχές Διοίκησης Επιχειρήσεων, ΜΒΑ». Σκοπός είναι η ανάλυση της αποδοτικότητας των Ελληνικών Εμπορικών Τραπεζικών Οργανισμών που είναι εισηγμένες στο Χρηματιστήριο Αθηνών, για το διάστημα 2006 – 2010, ουσιαστικά 2 χρόνια πριν και κατά τη διάρκεια της οικονομικής κρίσης, κι επιπλέον ο προσδιορισμός τρόπων βελτίωσης του βαθμού αξιοποίησης των διατιθέμενων πόρων από τις μη αποδοτικές μονάδες. Χρησιμοποιήθηκαν δυο μέθοδοι ανάλυσης, μέσω Αριθμοδεικτών αποδοτικότητας και η μέθοδος της Περιβάλλουσας Ανάλυσης Δεδομένων (DEA) και ειδικότερα στη δεύτερη περίπτωση επιλύθηκε σε δύο στάδια το μοντέλο CCR, CRS, input oriented. Αναλύθηκαν δύο περιπτώσεις, α) μόνο ενδογενείς μεταβλητές των εταιρειών και β) συμπεριελήφθησαν και εξωγενείς μακροοικονομικές μεταβλητές όπως Πληθωρισμός και ΑΕΠ, ώστε να περιγραφεί και η γενικότερη Οικονομική Κατάσταση. Τα αποτελέσματα της πρώτης μεθόδου, δείχνουν αρκετές τράπεζες να έχουν χαμηλή αποδοτικότητα Efficiency Ratio. Ωστόσο, οι επιμέρους αριθμοδείκτες ROA, ROE και NPM, καταδεικνύουν μη αποτελεσματική τη Geniki Bank κυρίως σε όλα τα έτη και τράπεζες όπως Ταχυδρομικό Ταμιευτήριο, T Bank, Proton Bank, Eurobank, σε συγκεκριμένα έτη κυρίως το 2008. Αξιοσημείωτη είναι η πολύ μεγάλη πτώση στις τιμές όλων των αριθμοδεικτών που αναλύθηκαν για την Αγροτική Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος, το 2010. Στην ανάλυση μέσω της DEA, τα αποτελέσματα δείχνουν ότι όταν υπολογίζεται συνολική αποδοτικότητα, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη πολλαπλές εισροές και εκροές, οι τράπεζες σε γενικές γραμμές σε λειτουργικό επίπεδο είναι αποτελεσματικές. Στην πρώτη περίπτωση βγήκαν αναποτελεσματικές οι τράπεζες σε ποσοστό 20%. Από αυτές κυρίως αναποτελεσματική είναι και πάλι η Geniki Bank. Στην δεύτερη περίπτωση, λαμβάνοντας υπόψην τη γενικότερη Οικονομική κατάσταση, το ποσοστό των αναποτελεσματικών Τραπεζών μειώνεται σε μόλις 5%. Σε γενικές γραμμές, ο μεγάλος αριθμός των αποδοτικών μονάδων συνάδει και με τη διαίσθηση που είχαμε γενικότερα, αλλά και απ’ όσα ακούμε σχετικά με την οικονομική κρίση ότι αφενός οι τράπεζες δεν αποτελούν παράγοντα που συντελεί στην οικονομική κρίση και επιπλέον έχουν διαμορφώσει λειτουργικό πλαίσιο που μπορεί να αναπροσαρμόζεται σε όλες τις συνθήκες και να είναι αποδοτικό. / Τhis study was conducted as part of the Postgraduate Program "New Principles of Business Administration, MBA." The aim is to analyze the efficiency of Greek Commercial Bank Institutions listed on the Athens Stock Exchange for the period 2005 - 2010, basically 2 years before and during the financial crisis. There were used two methods of analysis through Efficiency Ratios and the method of Data Envelopment Analysis in the form of two stages model CCR, CRS, input oriented. We analyzed two cases with DEA: a) only discretionary variables and b) with the aid of non discretionary (macroeconomic) variables such as inflation and GDP, in order to describe the overall economic situation. The results of the first method show that several banks have low Efficiency Ratio. However, the ratios ROA, ROE and NPM, demonstrate mainly ineffective Geniki Bank in all years and Banks like TT, T Bank, Proton Bank and Eurobank, in particular years, especially in 2008. It is worth noting that there is very large decline of all ratios for the Agricultural Bank of Greece, in 2010. DEA results indicate that in the banking sector the operational level is effective. In the first case we found inefficient banks up to 20%. Of these most inefficient is the National Bank of Greece (50% in the study period), followed by Geniki Bank and Proton Bank (with a rate of 33.3% inefficiency in the study period). In the second case, the proportion of inefficient banks is reduced to only 11.67%. The difference lies mainly in the National Bank of Greece which in the second model is effective throughout the whole period under study. Generally, the large number of efficient units is consistent with the general sense, about the economic crisis that banks are not a contributing factor to the financial crisis and have developed an operational framework that can be adjusted in all situations and be effective.

A key challenge facing dairy farming is to meet the increasing demand for dairy products from a growing and more affluent global population in a period of unprecedented socio-economic and environmental change. In order to address this challenge, policies are currently placing emphasis on ‘sustainable intensification’ (SI), i.e. producing ‘more’ outputs and services with ‘less’ resources and environmental impacts. Determining whether or not SI can deliver greater yet sustainable dairy production requires understanding of the relationships between sustainability pillars (environmental; economic; and social) and farm aspects (e.g. on-farm management; and animal productivity) under particular farming systems and circumstances (e.g. regional bio-physical conditions). Trade-offs between pillars and aspects is inevitable within a farming system. Many widely-used assessment methods that aim to measure, scale and weight these pillars and aspects are unable to fully capture trade-offs between them. The objectives of this thesis are: 1) to identify key trade-offs in dairy farming systems to inform greater yet sustainable food production; and 2) to introduce models and methodologies aiming at a more holistic measurement and better understanding of dairy farm sustainability. This thesis assesses the sustainability of French and UK dairy farming systems via a farm efficiency benchmarking modelling framework coupled with statistical analyses. It explores the relationships between pillars, aspects and technical, economic and environmental performance; and identifies important drivers/differentials in dairy farm efficiency. Importantly, it also suggests ways in which farm inputs and outputs can be adjusted so that improvements in environmental, technical and economic performance become feasible. Efficiency benchmarking was performed with the multiple-input – multiple-output productive efficiency method Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA calculates single aggregated efficiency indices per farm by accounting for several farm inputs and outputs which the DEA model endogenously scales and weights. In this work, the notion of farm inputs and outputs was extended to also include ‘undesirable’ outputs (greenhouse gas emissions) and environmental impacts (e.g. eutrophication, acidification etc.) of dairy farming. The DEA models employed belong to the family of ‘additive’ models, which have several advantages over ‘traditional’ DEA models. These include their ability (i) to simultaneously increase outputs and reduce inputs, undesirable outputs and environmental impacts; (ii) to identify specific sources of inefficiency. These ‘sources’ represent a farm’s shortfalls in output production and its excesses in input use and/or in undesirable outputs and environmental impacts, relatively to the other farms; (iii) to position undesirable outputs in the output set rather than consider them as inputs or ‘inverse’ outputs; and (iv) to rank farms by efficiency performance. Importantly, this thesis also proposes a new additive model with a ranking property and high discriminatory power. In a second stage, DEA was coupled with partial least squares structural equation modelling (SEM) so as to develop and relate latent variables for environmental performance, animal productivity and on-farm management practices. The results suggested that the efficacy of SI may be compromised by several on-farm trade-offs between pillars, aspects and farm inputs and outputs. Moreover, trade-offs depended on particular farming systems and circumstances. Increasing animal productivity did not always improve farm environmental performance at whole farm-level. Intensifying production at animal and farm-levels, coupled with high reliance on external inputs, reduced farm environmental performance in the French case, i.e. a significant negative relationship was found between intensification and environmental performance (SEM path coefficients ranged between -0.31 and -0.57, p < 0.05). Conversely, in the UK case, systems representing animal-level intensification (via genetic selection) for increased milk fat plus protein production performed better, on average, than controls of UK average genetic merit for milk fat plus protein production in terms of technical efficiency (DEA scores between 0.91– 0.92 versus 0.78–0.79) and environmental efficiency (scores between 0.92–0.93 versus 0.80), regardless of whether on a low-forage or high-forage diet. The levels of inefficiency in (undesirable) outputs, inputs and environmental impacts varied among farming systems and depended on the regional and managerial characteristics of each system. For instance, in France, West farms had higher eutrophication inefficiencies than East farms (average normalized eutrophication inefficiencies were, respectively 0.141 and 0.107), perhaps because of their more intensive production practices. However, West farms were more DEA-efficient than East farms as the former benefited from bio-physical conditions more favourable to dairy farming (mean DEA score ranks were 97 for West and 83 for East). Such findings can guide policy incentives for SI in different regions or dairy systems. The proposed modelling framework significantly contributes to current knowledge and the search for the best pathways to SI, improves widely-used modelling approaches, and challenges earlier findings based on less holistic exercises.

Este estudo visa avaliar o desempenho do sistema através da análise de eficiência no setor de Concessões de Rodovias do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Para tanto, foi utilizada como técnica de medição a Análise Envoltória de Dados (DEA), a qual mede a eficiência relativa entre unidades comparáveis. Neste estudo, foram utilizadas as variáveis de insumos que melhor representam as decisões gerenciais das empresas. Desta forma, foram construídos quatro modelos para análise, considerando dois diferentes pontos de vista: do empresário e do gestor do sistema. Os dados financeiros e qualitativos utilizados nos modelos foram obtidos de fontes oficiais. As análises tiveram como foco a evolução do desempenho das concessionárias ao longo dos anos de contrato para um período de quatro anos, bem como a avaliação de eficiência de escala e a correlação de resultados financeiros com indicadores qualitativos. Em relação à DEA, os modelos foram orientados para a redução na utilização de insumos, considerando tecnologia de retornos variáveis e questões relativas à escala. Os resultados deste trabalho podem auxiliar na tomada de decisões dos fornecedores do serviço e do gestor (órgão regulador) das concessões, uma vez que fornecem informações relevantes decorrentes do uso de instrumentos analíticos ainda pouco explorados. / This study aims to evaluate system performance through the efficiency analysis of Highways Concessions’ sector of Rio Grande do Sul State. Thus, as measurement technique, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used, which measures the relative efficiency among comparable units. This study used the input variables that better represent the management decisions of the companies. In this way, four models were built for analysis, considering two different points of view: the undertaker and the manager of the system. The financial and qualitative data used in the models were obtained from official sources. The analyses had as focus the performance evolution of the concessionaires along the years of contract for a period of four years, as well as the evaluation of scale efficiency and the correlation of financial results with qualitative indicators. Related to DEA, the models were oriented to inputs use reduction, considering technology of variable returns and scale factors. The results of this work can aid in the decision making of the service suppliers and the manager (regulatory sector) of the concessions, once they provide relevant information due to the use of analytical instruments still not much explored.

In today's dynamically changing times, the main objective of organizations operating in the private and public sphere is efficiency maximizing. This thesis has been based on this assumption. The main aim of this work is to provide on the specific case an evaluation of the efficiency by using methods of multiple-criteria decision-making in the public sector. The rating of individual regional offices of the Czech Statistical Office, substantially participating in data collecting by performing statistical surveys, is presented in this work, using the method of Data Envelopment Analysis. The thesis can be divided into two parts. The first part deals with the theoretical preparation. This part describes the basic terms connected with the topic of the effectiveness evaluation and a theoretical description of the method the processing is based on. The second part describes the processing itself. At the beginning of this part, there is a brief overview of the activities of the Czech Statistical Office, which is followed by an overview of the statistical survey areas. Then, based on selected inputs and outputs, the efficiency is evaluated.

Title: Evaluating of efficiency of Football Clubs in Premier League by Data Envelopment Analysis. Goals: The aim of the thesis is to identify the effectiveness of football clubs in the Premier League in the season 2016/2017. In the post optimization analysis evaluate, which observed clubs have been effective in transforming inputs into outputs, and which clubs have some deficiencies in this transformation. Methods: In the thesis for efficiency research, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) data analysis method is used to evaluate the effectiveness of individual clubs in the Premier League. DEA determines which units are effective and what are the deviations from the effective frontier for the units that are inefficient. The measurements are made by an input- oriented CCR model and a BCC model. The CCR model assumes constant returns to scale and BCC considers variable returns to scale. Results: The result section identifies the productive efficiency of individual football clubs in the Premier League in the season 2016/2017. The effective frontier reached a total of 7 clubs in both CCR and BCC models. The average efficiency in the CCR model is 87 %. In the BCC model, the average efficiency is 91 %. As a result, the Premier League as a competition is highly efficient. Key words: data envelopment...

Este estudo visa avaliar o desempenho do sistema através da análise de eficiência no setor de Concessões de Rodovias do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. Para tanto, foi utilizada como técnica de medição a Análise Envoltória de Dados (DEA), a qual mede a eficiência relativa entre unidades comparáveis. Neste estudo, foram utilizadas as variáveis de insumos que melhor representam as decisões gerenciais das empresas. Desta forma, foram construídos quatro modelos para análise, considerando dois diferentes pontos de vista: do empresário e do gestor do sistema. Os dados financeiros e qualitativos utilizados nos modelos foram obtidos de fontes oficiais. As análises tiveram como foco a evolução do desempenho das concessionárias ao longo dos anos de contrato para um período de quatro anos, bem como a avaliação de eficiência de escala e a correlação de resultados financeiros com indicadores qualitativos. Em relação à DEA, os modelos foram orientados para a redução na utilização de insumos, considerando tecnologia de retornos variáveis e questões relativas à escala. Os resultados deste trabalho podem auxiliar na tomada de decisões dos fornecedores do serviço e do gestor (órgão regulador) das concessões, uma vez que fornecem informações relevantes decorrentes do uso de instrumentos analíticos ainda pouco explorados. / This study aims to evaluate system performance through the efficiency analysis of Highways Concessions’ sector of Rio Grande do Sul State. Thus, as measurement technique, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used, which measures the relative efficiency among comparable units. This study used the input variables that better represent the management decisions of the companies. In this way, four models were built for analysis, considering two different points of view: the undertaker and the manager of the system. The financial and qualitative data used in the models were obtained from official sources. The analyses had as focus the performance evolution of the concessionaires along the years of contract for a period of four years, as well as the evaluation of scale efficiency and the correlation of financial results with qualitative indicators. Related to DEA, the models were oriented to inputs use reduction, considering technology of variable returns and scale factors. The results of this work can aid in the decision making of the service suppliers and the manager (regulatory sector) of the concessions, once they provide relevant information due to the use of analytical instruments still not much explored.