Opening the black box of efficiency analysis: An illustration with UAE banks

Standard data envelopment analysis (DEA) does not provide adequate detail to identify the specific sources of inefficiency embedded in interacting divisions of an organization. On the other hand, network DEA gives access to this underlying diagnostic information that would otherwise remain undiscovered. As a first study of its kind, the paper illustrates an application of non-oriented network slacks-based measure using simulated profit center data that, in turn, rely on actual aggregate data on domestic commercial banks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study also contributes to a perennial research problem, namely, inability of the outside researcher to access internal data for developing or testing new methods. In addition to these contributions to the Operations Research literature, focusing on UAE contributes to banking literature because this rapidly expanding part of the Middle East seldom appears in frontier efficiency literature.