Efficiency of the supply chain collaborative technological innovation in China: An empirical study based on DEA analysis

Abstract

Purpose: This paper is an attempt to investigate the current issues and development of the supply chain collaborative technological innovation in China.

Design/methodology/approach: DEA is employed to measure the efficiency of the supply chain collaborative technological innovation.

Findings: From the results of this research, we can get the conclusion that there are big spaces for improvement for the selected companies in terms of supply chain collaborative technological innovation, especially in the collaborative benefit aspect. The efficiencies of the supply chain collaborative technological innovation in the selected companies vary a lot.

Research limitations: More industries are needed to generalize the conclusions.

Practical implications: Our practical recommendations for improving supply chain companies in terms of improving their collaborative technological innovation efficiency are: (1) expanding the cooperative scope; (2) optimizing the collaboration operations; (3) improving the compactness in supply chain; (4) increasing the innovation input; and (5) improving the knowledge exchange capacity.

Originality/value: The evaluation and the measure of the efficiency of performance of the collaborative technological innovation both in theory and in practice have been proven to be very important and quite complex, and there have been limited researches in the current literature. From observations, however, the efficiency of supply chain collaborative technological innovation is relatively low. This research investigates the current issues and development of the supply chain collaborative technological innovation in China, and provides the guideline in terms of improving the efficiency of supply chain collaborative technological innovation.