A new approach for performance evaluation of energy-related enterprises

Oil is among the most effective and the largest industries in the world. Given that it supplies a large percentage of the world’s energy and plays a significant role in the national power and international credit of countries, it has a huge impact on our world today. Iran has huge oil reserves, and plays a key role in the exchange of the required energy in the world. In order to improve the performance of this critical industry, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of petroleum producing companies. The main purpose of this paper is to present the first three-stage data envelopment analysis-based approach, integrated with a balanced scorecard for performance evaluation of oil companies. Regarding the cause and effect relationships among different aspects of the balanced scorecard, its indicators are employed as input and output variables of the data envelopment analysis model and the efficiency is calculated. The results indicated that among the oil companies investigated in this paper, the National Iranian South Oil Company and Aravindan Oil & Gas Company recorded the highest and lowest efficiencies, respectively. The proposed approach by authors provides a valuable tool for managers in the oil industry to evaluate the performance and take action for performance improvement.