Abstract

Sustainability management is a subject of growing interest in economic development, business management, and environmental management. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been widely used to integrate this diverse nature of sustainable performance in economy. However, existing DEA frameworks suffer from two critical limitations: First, they follow traditional radial assumptions, which may lead to difficulties in characterizing the real production process. Second, they do not estimate the determinants of sustainable performance. In this regard, this paper presents a two-stage DEA model that can overcome these limitations. In the first stage, non-radial and non-oriented DEA frameworks with the slacks-based measure (SBM) are introduced. In the second stage, the truncated bootstrap regression identifies the determinants of sustainable performance with industries in 30 regions of China.  The eastern region showed the highest sustainable performance, whereas the western region showed the lowest performance. The level of industrialization had no effect on sustainability management. However, GDP per capita, the promotion of the service industry, energy efficiency, public investment in environmental pollution control, and the waste reuse technology level had positive effects on sustainable performance.

Key words: Sustainability management, two-stage DEA, truncated bootstrap regression, China, SBM-DEA.