Determinants of Vietnamese Colleges’ Academic Performance: The Second Stage Bootstrapping DEA Approach

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the determinants of the academic performance of 141 colleges in Vietnam in 2011/12–2013/14. The second-stage bootstrapping data envelopment analysis is proposed to estimate performance of colleges and investigate the effects of environmental factors on their performance. The findings reveal that colleges in the surveyed sample are not technically efficient in their operations. To obtain the full efficiency of unity, colleges could potentially improve their efficiencies, on average, 37.7 per cent for colleges. However, inefficiencies of colleges are not entirely a result of managerial performance. Instead, external factors including location, age, and ownership are presented as key influencers on inefficiencies of colleges. Our results are expected to provide more understanding of the operational efficiencies of colleges for educational managers and policy makers on the way seeking possible solutions to enhancing innovation in performance of Vietnamese colleges.