Abstract Promoting management efficiency is always a big concern either to profit-making or non-profit-making organizations. An efficient firm indicates that the leader manages well. To a profit-making unit, the term ¡§efficiency¡¨ means ¡§rapid production¡¨, ¡§the offer of distribution¡¨ and ¡§related services¡¨ which could save time and the good use of manpower and resources are also included. Therefore, the promotion of management efficiency becomes an important issue for the organization to survive successfully and to fight with other competitors. This study was to present the evaluation of management efficiency of some commercial banks in Taiwan. Some factors were selected as the ¡§input items¡¨ and ¡§output items¡¨from the financial reports of these commercial banks in Taiwan from 1999 to 2001. It evaluated the efficiency performance of these commercial banks according to the evaluation theory of Farrell and Data Envelopment Analysis. The relative efficiency in the process of the transferring from ¡§input items¡¨ to ¡§output items¡¨ was also concerned. From the changes in ¡§input items¡¨, it could show how efficiency value changes. By these two analyses (Slack Variables Analysis and Scale Efficiency Analysis), the results could show a direction in order to improve the efficiency of all these commercial banks. 38 commercial banks were selected and evaluated in this research. The information collected from financial reports was to construct a model in order to evaluate management efficiency of all subjects. This investigation involved ¡§overall efficiency ¡¨, ¡§overall technical efficiency¡¨, ¡§pure technical efficiency¡¨, ¡§scale efficiency¡¨, and ¡§allocative efficiency ¡¨. Apart from these calculation, all subjects were grouped into three parties: namely ¡§old commercial banks¡¨, ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ and ¡§commercial banks upgraded from credit cooperative¡¨; by cross and vertical analysis the result provided the comparison of management efficiency among these three groups. Using the CCR and BCC models, the overall efficiency value and technical efficiency became available. The Return to Scale was derived by the use of CCR model. The first finding from financial reports in 2001 showed that the top five as the most efficient banks among 38 subjects were Cathy United Bank, Taishin International Bank, Taipei Bank, Fubon Commercial Bank and Bank of Kaohsiung respectively. The bottom five subjects were Chung Shing Bank, Kao Shin Commercial Bank, Cota Commercial Bank, Pan Asia Bank and Union Bank of Taiwan. The Second finding showed that the ¡§old commercial banks¡¨ represented the highest efficiency value in the analysis, which was based on 2001 financial reports. Both the ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ and ¡§commercial banks upgraded from credit cooperative¡¨ had efficiency value, which was below the average efficiency value of all subjects. This was different from the result based on financial report in 2000, which showed that the ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ had the highest efficiency value. This represented the overall efficiency of the ¡§old commercial banks¡¨ was improving and that of the ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ was getting worse. Thirdly, through ¡§Slack Variables Analysis (SVA)¡¨, the result would indicate a direction for these ¡§less-efficient¡¨ subjects for improvement. The decision-maker could follow this direction to restructure or reallocate resources, and refer to the allocation of resources and strategies application of those subjects, which with overall efficiency, in order to improve its management efficiency and reach the optima production. The fourth, using "Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)" to test whether the efficiency values were different between these three groups. The result showed that the efficiency values between these three groups were significantly different in 2001. According to Scheffe's S method, the difference was derived from the scale efficiency between the groups of "new commercial banks" and "commercial banks upgraded from credit cooperative". Finally, according to the regression analysis, the result showed that the overall efficiency measure is negatively related to overdue loans but positively related to BIS ratio. The other items, such as the numbers of branch, the numbers of employee, capital and the numbers of ATM, which were non-related to the overall efficiency.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jeffrey M. Peterson / This study focused on the economic efficiency of Kansas farms. The goal was to investigate factors and how they might affect farms and their economic and production performance. Kansas was selected as the region of study for its large agricultural production and distinctive type of multiple-operation farms. Farms in the sample could produce three outputs, crops, livestock and custom work. Inputs for the farms included measures of capital, labor, land and purchased inputs. Production outputs were measured in bushels and tons; input quantities were computed from input expenditures applying an input price index taken from the US Department of Agriculture in real US dollars. The dataset consisted of a 10-year (1998-2007) panel of 456 multi-output farms belonging to the Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA). Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques were used to construct a non-parametric efficiency frontier and calculate technical efficiency (TE), allocative efficiency (AE), scale efficiency (SE), and overall or economic efficiency (OE) for each farm and each year. A discretionary input oriented DEA technique was used to assess the effect of capital availability as a farm input and its impact on farms' efficiencies. Efficiency scores in this problem were compared to the farms' scores when the level of debt was accounted for as a farm input. Panel data Tobit analysis was applied to the farms' inefficiency scores to investigate the causality of selected farm characteristics on technical, allocative, scale and overall inefficiencies. For the sampled farms and period, results confirmed that larger farms were more efficient than smaller ones. Farms specializing in livestock products, such as dairy and beef, were reported to be slightly more overall efficient than crop or mixed farms. Some economies of scope were found between custom work operations and crops. Financial structure of the farms was measured using the ratio of total debt to total assets for each farm. According to the results, larger leverage ratios increased all farm efficiencies. The positive effect of debt or capital availability in Kansas farms efficiencies was confirmed. The results of the technical efficiency discretionary DEA model agreed with this finding.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-05T17:05:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 24 / Nenhuma / Este estudo apresenta uma proposta de método para análise e dimensionamento de células de produção, na qual certas premissas no sistema produtivo como a eficiência global dos equipamentos, a variação de demanda, e a colocação de vários produtos na célula são considerados relevantes. A atenção para influência dessas características pode contribuir para melhorar o dimensionamento e a avaliação das capacidades reais através de uma visão baseada no processo de melhoria contínua. A metodologia de pesquisa utilizada foi o estudo de casos múltiplos. As etapas utilizadas para o desenvolvimento do trabalho foram: i) apresentação de métodos utilizados para o dimensionamento de células de produção como base de compreensão à sistemática atual adotada; ii) análise do dimensionamento de células piloto baseado em um método utilizado na empresa estudada; iii) revisão das possibilidades de melhorias e possíveis adaptações no método utilizado; iv) proposta de um método de análise e dimensionamento de células com base em um con / This study proposes a method for analysis and design of production cells, in which certain assumptions in the productive system and the overall efficiency of the equipment, the change in demand, and the placement of various products in the cell are considered relevant. The attention to influence of these characteristics can help to improve the design and performance capabilities through a real vision based on the continuous improvement process. The research methodology used was a multiple case study. The steps used for the development of the work were: i) presentation of methods for the design of production cells as a basis for understanding the current adopted systematic; ii) analysis of the pilot cell design based on a method used in the company studied; iii) reviewing the scope for improvements and possible changes in the method used; iv) propose a method of analysis and design of cells based on a proper context and application requirements as the support structure, the form of analysis and design and perf