مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد نردبان یادگیری به سوی کارآیی

مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله امگا – Omega

Efficiency improvement involves technological and organizational changes, and such substantial changes require a carefully oriented inter-organizational knowledge absorbing process [1]. Taking into account that slow learning is a major reason for inef- ficiency [2], adopting a stepwise benchmarking path not only facilitates the knowledge absorption process but also reduces the risk of failure implied by setting an out-of-reach efficiency target [3,4].

Assuming the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method as a network of units that aim to learn by benchmarking, we propose an application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in the DEA context to transform the benchmarking information of DEA efficiency measurement into a network of possible efficiency improvements, and calculate the optimal stepwise benchmarking paths.

This paper is grounded on the knowledge-based view of effi- ciency, which understands efficiency improvement as a learning process [5]. According to the theory of absorptive capacity [6], one firm’s ability to learn from another depends on the similarity of the two firms’ knowledge base, organizational structures and consumption policies [7]. In a DEA problem, this knowledge overlap and structural relevance can be measured through the similarities in the inputs as well as in the outputs [1,5,8].