Efficiency analysis of cross-region bank branches using fuzzy data envelopment analysis

In today’s economy and society, performance analyses in the services industries attract more and more attention. The traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach requires a consistent operating environment. However, in reality, there is a need to evaluate the units belonging to different environment. This reality challenges the traditional methods of applying DEA theory to real-world cases where benchmarking across region can be a very important undertaking. This paper introduces the fuzzy logic into DEA formulation to deal with the environmental variables so that the performance of bank branches from different regions can be assessed. The inner-province and inter-province comparison are given based on the fuzzy DEA results. These results are also compared with the results from traditional DEA analysis. 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.