further studies and practices, it’s necessary to build more scientific evaluation
indicator system on a solid theoretical framework, which could reflect the substance
of research activities.
Forth, most of literature uses cross-sectional data to analyze university research
efficiency and productivity, and only a few utilize longitudinal data or panel data to
reveal the change or the trend of university research efficiency. Whereas, trend
analysis is much more valuable to administrators and policymakers.
Fifth, most of literature is restricted to evaluating the status of efficiency, while
short of exploiting the underlying factors impacting on efficiency and productivity,
which makes the policy implications obtained from these studies be not
well-supported by the empirical evidences.
To China, due to limited data accessibility, most studies have no choice but to
use the administrative data published of universities administered by Ministry of
Education (MOE) or other top universities, leaving no touch on the evaluation and
examination on the research efficiency of other types. For instance, to date, there is
no study evaluating the research efficiency of 211Us. Besides, there lacks classified
evaluations university research efficiency subject to their different types. These
points not only violate the principle of sample homogeneity required by DEA
method, but also leaves no space for providing helpful suggestions to manage
universities according to their specific type.
Above all, the existing studies concerning university research efficiency and
productivity still have much room for extension and exploration, in aspects of
indicator selection, estimation technique, as well as time-trend analysis, which all
need to be overcome and challenge in the further studies. Besides, researchers
should also pay more attention to the micro-mechanism on allocation process of
university research resources, such as human resource structure of research staff
(human resource allocation), the trade-off of a faculty’s time between teaching and
research (time allocation), funds for teaching and R&D activities (financial allo-
cation), faculty’s individual choice and research incentive institutions (institutional
allocation). Only through sophisticated exploitation into internal resource allocation
process can we discover the inner mechanism of university efficiency and
productivity.
2.5.2 Limitations on Quantitative Approach.................
It’s well recognized that quantitative approach like DEA, SFA and other econo-
metric models have enriched the empirical studies in evaluating efficiency and
productivity of university research production, and have shown its advantages in
aspects such as the evaluation accuracy, broadness of evaluation scope, and eval-
uation equity over non-quantitative approach. However, it’s worth notifying that
there are certain limitations to employ quantitative approach.
First, there is no quantitative approach that has no restrictions andflaws. As we
mentioned before, both parametric and non-parametric methods in measuring
2.5 Comments on Empirical Literature and Quantitative Approach 25