Research-Teaching Efficiencies of State Universities in Turkey and the Role of Strategic Priorities in Improving Efficiency: An Application of Multi-Activity DEA

In this study, the research and teaching efficiencies of 45 selected state universities in Turkey are measured by using the Multi-Activity Data Envelopment Analysis (MA-DEA) model for the year 2010. Universities are institutions which face multiple production functions simultaneously, therefore they can be considered as carrying out mainly research and teaching activities using common resources. The mathematical formulation of MA-DEA is capable of objectively assigning the shared variables to different activities. Hence, the model is adapted to the problem by assuming a suitable production process for the Turkish Higher Education System. Results first show that the MA-DEA model generates different efficiency scores for universities and hence “research efficient” and “teaching efficient” universities have been identified. In addition, since the structure of MA-DEA model allows each university can give different priorities to different activities, scenario analyses have been applied on this priorities and it is shown that by assigning higher priorities to the activities which they are more efficient, universities can reach higher total efficiencies. The importance of this result related with performance analysis and strategic planning is then emphasized.