Research On The Competitiveness Of Universities Based On Benchmarking

Since the 1990s, universities in some developed countries such as the US, the UK and the Australia have implemented benchmarking to evaluate and improve their competitiveness, which has gained great success. Benchmarking has become one of the most widely used methods and instruments in the"institutional research"of developed countries in the 21st century. However, the systematic application and empirical researches of benchmarking in universities is relatively rare within China. Accordingly, basing on the systematical reviews of the foreign researches and basic theories, this paper empirically studies the competitiveness evaluation and strategic design of Xi'an Science & Technology University and China University of Mining & Technology by benchmarking. The main innovative points are as follows:1. Establishes an overall competitiveness indicator system of universities basing on Benchmarking. The system built in this dissertation contains appropriate number of indicators, which overcomes the weaknesses of evaluation system that too complicated and sometimes repetitive indicators in domestic researche(saround 100)while relative few ones in foreign researches(no more than 10). It changes the status that separates the indictors of teaching and researching, avoids the problem that"indicators with double attributes"classified differently in different systems. In addition, considering the nature of mining universities, indicators of mining engineering are added in the system, eliminating the problem that using one indicators system to evaluate the universities with different types and characteristics.2. Establishes an evaluation system of relative competitiveness of universities'internal schools on the basis of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The"input and output"assessment system of internal schools concerns the difference nature of Science & Engineering and Art & Literature, defines the"intermediate variable indicators"with double attributes of"input and output", classifies the indicators of significant correlation into several groups according to their primary and secondary priority, and figures out the secondary priority indicators'sensitivity to results when they are gradually eliminated.3. Measures the performance disparities in overall competitiveness of universities, designs major development strategies for Xi'an Science & Technology University. Basing on the overall competitiveness system, the performance disparities between the two universities are calculated with the R-type Cluster Analysis and Gap Analysis method. Radar-graph indicates that there are 13 indicators existing significant disparities between Xi'an Science & Technology University and China University of Mining & Technology, especially the input to the mining engineering discipline. It is found that the narrow coverage of the discipline of mining engineering and the lack of enough support from schools are the main reasons. Subsequently, major development strategies are designed by using Boston Matrix Analysis.4. Calculates the relative efficiency,scale effectiveness & shadow prices of Science & Engineering Schools, and proposes improving schemes for the non-DEA's effective decision-making units of Xi'an Science & Technology University. Basing on the internal schools evaluation system of relative competitiveness, the relative efficiency of 10 Science & Engineering Schools in the two universities is calculated by using the CCR Model in DEA on the condition that indicators of different priorities are grouped differently. It is also found that eliminating indicators of secondary priority seldom has impact on the result. Estimation results show that only two Schools'relative efficiency in Xi'an Science & Technology University is lower than their"benchmark peers"in China University of Mining & Technology, while the other three Schools'is higher than or equal with their"benchmark peers". This result indicates that the Science & Engineering Schools in Xi'an Science & Technology University has generated effective output with less input. Improvement schemes are proposed by further calculation of the"scale effectiveness"&"shadow price"of non-DEA's effective decision-making unit, and also analyses the reasons for the"paradox"by using DEA.5. Develops a dynamic monitoring and forewarning system of the competitiveness of university based on J2EE and SQL Server. With the popularization of higher education, disparities between universities in east and west of China and in different affiliations become greater because of the geographical environment and investment etc. In order to reflect the fact in time, a dynamic monitoring and forewarning system of the competitiveness of university is designed in this thesis. By adopting J2EE multi-layer system frame used in integrating Hibernate persistence layer, and using Tomcat5.5 as the application server and SQL Server 2000 as the database server, a multi-layer management of indicators, a performance measurement of indicators and the forewarning function are all realized. The system facilitates the dynamic comparison between benchmark universities and helps take effective measures in time to narrow the disparities.