Business partnerships and strategic alliances under the hybrid disposable technology in DEA: A case on educational schools

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Article

Author

Javad Gerami

Department of Mathematics, Shi.C., Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran

10.22067/ijnao.2026.99376.1894

Abstract

Several studies have been presented in the field of business partnerships and strategic alliances based on data envelopment analysis (DEA). Choosing an appropriate model can help decision-making units (DMUs) achieve the right partnership and strategic alliance. To evaluate DMUs whose inputs and outputs are closely related, the Hybrid Disposability (HD) technology was presented. In this study, we present the modeling of the business partnership and strategic alliance process between DMUs in the HD technology. For this purpose, we choose two different strategies. In the first strategy, the give-and-take between the inputs from the two DMUs as partners is done in such a way that the two units achieve a maximum efficiency score after the partnership process. This modeling is done based on multiplier DEA models in the HD technology. In the second strategy, the adjustment between the inputs and outputs from the two DMUs is done in such a way that the two units in the partnership process achieve a target eciency level predetermined by the decision-maker (DM). The partnership process in this strategy is based on envelopment inverse DEA models in the HD technology. To take into account the dependence and close relationships of inputs and outputs that have close dependencies, we consider three assumptions of strong disposability, weak disposability, and selective strong and weak disposability in the partnership process. We apply our approach to the business partnership and strategic alliance process for performance improvement of educational schools. In the educational-school application, the disposability classification is determined according to the operational relationships and managerial adjustability of the school inputs and outputs, allowing the proposed framework to distinguish between independently adjustable variables and variables requiring coordinated adjustment. Finally, we present the results of the paper.

Keywords

Data envelopment analysis

Inverse DEA

Hybrid disposable technology

Business partnerships

Strategic alliances

Closely related data

Selective strong and weak disposability

Subjects

• Optimization

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