Evaluating the corporate performance in sustainable development of China's listed companies: a new series-parallel structure based on network DEA and BoD models

The sustainable finance's selective backing and the capital market's increasing attention on corporate sustainability highlight that evaluating listed companies' green performance is of crucial importance for investors. However, few studies have considered the aggregated performance of innovative, operational and environmental sub-systems. This study constructs a sustainability system of a series-parallel structure, and proposes a new methodological framework with several charming methodological advantages. Empirically, this study evaluates aggregated efficiency and technology inequality across China's 1065 listed companies from 2011 to 2021. The main findings are summarized as follows. First, the average efficiency of innovative sub-system (0.730) is lower than that of operational and environmental sub-systems, suggesting that listed companies still have much potential to enhance innovation capabilities. Second, according to results of direct and indirect network performance indexes, intermediate products are identified as important focus points for improving sustainability performance. Finally, the efficiency Gini coefficient reveals a widening gap in technical inequality among sample companies in the sustainability assessment system, with the growing disparity between the two sub-sample groups acting as a primary factor. This study provides policymakers with a robust approach for tracking sources of inefficiency, and then propose proactive strategies to enhance company sustainability.