An Approach to Assessing Service Operations in the Short and Long Runs: Efficiency Analysis and Empirical Application

In this paper we present an optimization approach to assessing the performance of service organizations from an Efficiency Analysis standpoint. In what concerns the empirical illustration, even though the paper employs data from a sample of Decision Making Units (DMUs) pertaining to a public system of academic libraries, there is no loss of generality if and when other kinds of organizations are considered. Summing up, our approach combines in a simple way efficiency scores computed from the estimation of selected Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models and a long run evaluation provided by Markovian analysis. The Markovian approach provides better knowledge concerning the time delay required for efficiency to be attained for the first time when a prescribed operation plan happens to be adopted.

The text is organized in five sections that include this introduction. The second section brings together some background ideas and results that helped found the paper. In the next section the methodological procedure is explained, followed by empirical findings in the fourth section. Conclusions, limitations and pending issues are presented to close the text.