Performance measurement in military provisions: the case of retail stores of Taiwan's General Welfare Service Ministry

This paper aims to explore the operating efficiency and the benchmark-learning road map of the military retail stores for Taiwan's General Welfare Service Ministry (GWSM). This study also presents an extension to the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method, by incorporating the traditional DEA, stratification DEA, attractiveness measure, and progress measure for assessing the performance of 31 retail stores of GWSM. The assessment can assist the Ministry of National Defense to improve the operational management of GWSM and to help the military retail stores on better delivering and efficient service to soldiers, veterans, and their dependants. The potential applications and strengths of DEA in assessing the military retail stores are highlighted.