The use of data envelopment analysis for international market selection in the presence of multiple dual-role factors

Selection of international market (IM) is a critical decision and needs to be made with considerable attention and deliberation. In some situations however, some criteria have the nature of both cost and profit. Likewise, in data envelopment analysis (DEA) some criteria play both input (cost) and output (profit) roles, simultaneously. In the DEA literature such criteria are called dual-role factors. Hence, the objective of this paper is to develop a new model for international market selection (IMS), using DEA based on ternary variable in the presence of dual-role factors. A case study illustrates the application of the proposed model.