Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze efficiency, measuring productivity growth of the academic departments and benchmarking for them. Efficiency measures are calculated by a non-parametric approach known as data envelopment analysis (DEA). Productivity is measured by the Malmquist index. The paper shows how DEA-based Malmquist productivity index can be employed to evaluate the technology and productivity changes resulted in the university. Total productivity growth, in two periods of time 2005-2006 and 2009-2010 academic years, has been calculated and indicated decline productivity, but there is a variation among individual units; also the frontier productivity and technical efficiency change (TEC) indices which are parts of the decomposed total productivity have been shown. To ensure long-term effectiveness in productivity, window analysis is adopted to seek the most recommended set of performance by measuring the performance changes over time. The study uses window analysis for benchmarking. Benchmarking is a process of defining valid measures of performance comparison among peer decision making units (DMUs), using them to determine the relative positions of the peer DMUs and, ultimately, establishing a standard of excellence. DEA can be regarded as a benchmarking tool, because the frontier identified can be regarded as an empirical standard of excellence. With window analysis, the performance of a DMU in one period is compared not only with the performance of other DMUs but also with its own performance in other periods. The proposed mechanism can provide guidance to the departments for aggregate planning so as to improve their efficiency. The results did not indicate improving performance.