Abstract: In the field of data envelopment analysis (DEA), methods for ranking decision making units (DMUs),which are based on crass-efficency, only give evaluation-score (CEES) of DMUs by such a definition of cross-efficency. As for this method-construction pattern, this paper has pointed, by reference to the theoretical concept of efficiency in the domain of management and the theory of multiple attribute decision-making, that the CEES of DMUs not only doesn’t match the managerial concept of efficiency, but also does make no sense to reflect the goodness or badness of DMUs. In order to overcome these problems mentioned above, a new concept of DEA overall-coordinating relative efficiency is proposed based on a cross-evaluation strategy and the managerial concept of efficiency. According to this new concept, based on the optimization theory, a new model is presented in this paper to measure the DEA overall-coordinating relative efficiencies of DMUs, which can be applied to rank DMUs. Theoretical and numerical analysis also shows that the new model has several comparative advantages over current methods for ranking DMUs.

Key words: DEA, cross-efficiency, cross-evaluation strategy, DMUs’ ranking