State-of-the-art of research involving x-efficiency

analysis of relationship networks

Abstract

The objective of this research is to elaborate a systematic literature review, seeking to evidence the state of the art of research on x-efficiency in the context of South America. Seeking to achieve the objective proposed in this research, the technique of systematic literature review was used, based on the protocol proposed by Tranfield et al., (2003) which covers three stages: (1) review planning, (2) review and (3) dissemination of knowledge. A total of 25 primary articles were identified in the Web of Science and Scopus databases after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, which are necessary to obtain articles from journals with high reputations. Among the main results of this research we can highlight: the most prominent authors and journals, validating Lotka's first bibliometric law of author productivity, especially Molinos-Senante with several articles produced, and Tabak with a high number of citations, in addition to the validation of Bradford's second bibliometric law of journal productivity, where the European Journal of Operational Research can be highlighted. Another interesting result of this research refers to the word cloud, highlighting terms such as: efficiency, water, cost and DEA that were terminologies closely associated with the x-efficiency theme, in addition, it was possible to categorize the sample of works according to the description of the content in the abstracts where Brazil stood out in terms of country; In terms of sectors of economic activity, the highlights were for banking and sanitation, while the type of approach of the estimation models was the stochastic frontier, with the most diverse variations.

Key words: X-Efficiency. Costs. Profit. Systematic Review.