A Model for Evaluating Financial Performance of Companies by Data Envelopment Analysis A Case Study of 36 Corporations Affiliated with a Private Organization
Reza Tehrani1, Mohammad Reza Mehragan1 & Mohammad Reza Golkani1
1
School of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Correspondence: Mohammad Reza Golkani, School of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. Tel: 98-915-518-0130. E-mail: rezagolkani@ut.ac.ir Received: May 15, 2012 doi:10.5539/ibr.v5n8p8 Abstract In the contemporary world, with the rapid growth of commercial activities there is no doubt on the inevitability of existence of a performance evaluation system in all organizations. This necessity is so evident that the lack of an evaluation system is regarded as a symptom of the organization unhealthiness. Financial evaluations encourage companies to attain a higher level of performance by showing current financial position of a company in relation to other companies and creating a competitive environment. Such evaluations are also useful in reforming and improving weaknesses which is done through recognition of the strengths of performed activities. To this end, the present study has developed a model to evaluate corporate performance through data envelopment analysis and has examined the model on a group of companies. To do so, the means of financial performance for a five year period including: liquidity, activities, leverage, and economic added value are employed as input indices of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Model and profitability ratios as output indices of the model. BCC input oriented covering model was used to rank the companies under study. Besides, a group of 36 companies were employed as the sample in the present case study of which 9 companies were found as efficient and the remaining 27 companies were regarded as