Abstract
Data envelopment analysis (DEA), by its design, was not intended
for resource allocation but for measuring relative efficiency of decision-making
units. Despite this, many researchers have successfully applied this modelling
technique to a variety of resource and cost allocation decisions in order to
improve operational efficiencies. This paper is a comprehensive review and
classification of such articles. The papers were classified by industry and by
DEA model-orientation. The findings of this paper show that existing models
predominately apply DEA to mass service industries (e.g., banking), thus,
revealing the opportunity for researchers to further develop DEA-based
resource allocation modelling toward improving the operational efficiencies of
other service industries (e.g., professional services). To guide researchers to
this end, we offer a discussion of the use of DEA modelling when the service
provider and the customer are both resources needing to be allocated, in other
words, using DEA to model professional or co-created services.