An Effective Framework to Distinguish and Introduce Superior Cooperatives, using Integrated BSC Approach and DEA in Yazd Province

Today’s world witnesses the constructively influential role of cooperatives in the socioeconomic areas، especially in the societies that enjoy more structurally organized cooperatives. Given the fact that there exists a direct relationship between cooperative’s economic performance and its success or failure، it would prove critical and logical to formulate a model to monitor the performance of the cooperative body. This paper tries to measure the relative efficiency of 26 cooperatives in Yazd province، Iran during 2010 by means of the “Integrated Model of Balanced Scorecard” (BSC) and “Data Envelopment Analysis” (DEA). Accordingly، BSC was taken as a tool to design performance evaluation criteria، while DEA was meant to apply performance evaluation as well as ranking. It should be added that DEA-Solver software was employed for cooperatives’ efficiency assessment. The results of the study demonstrated that out of 26 cooperatives، evaluated by CCR deterministic model، 19 cooperatives in the first model، 18 cooperatives in the second model، and finally، 9 more in the third one were deemed efficient. Cooperative number 26 was introduced as the first in the ranking while cooperative number 17 was the last one. The two models studied in this paper were later combined so as to discern and pinpoint the performance evaluation criteria with the ulterior aim of minimizing the flaws of either one as well as augmenting the mutual support of both to meet the target in the study.