Sustainability in Chinese Higher Educational Institutions’ Social Science Research: A Performance Interface toward Efficiency

Xianmei Wang and Hanhui Hu
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Xianmei Wang: Department of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Hanhui Hu: Department of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-18

Abstract: Sustainability issues in higher educational institutions’ (HEIs) research, especially in the social science field, have attracted increasing levels of attention in higher education administration in recent decades as HEIs are confronted with a growing pressure worldwide to increase the efficiency of their research activities under a limited volume and relatively equitable division of public funding resources. This paper introduces a theoretical analysis framework based on a data envelopment analysis, separating the social science research process into a foundation stage and a construction stage, and then projecting each HEI into certain quadrants to form several clusters according to their overall and stage efficiencies and corresponding Malmquist Productivity Indices. Furthermore, the interfaces are formed in each cluster as feasible potential improvement directions. The empirical results in detail are demonstrated from a data set of Chinese HEIs in Jiangsu Province over the Twelfth Five-Year period as offering a closer approximation to the “China social science research best practice”.

Keywords: interface; social science research; higher educational institutions; performance; data envelopment analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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