The robustness verification result.

The pharmaceutical industry plays a vital role in safeguarding public health and enhancing industrial competitiveness. However, pharmaceutical industry in China faces persistent challenges, including high pollution, insufficient innovation, and limited profit margins, which constrain its global competitiveness. The current researches on the operational efficiency were either from financial or innovation aspects-lacking a comprehensive assessment framework. Moreover, the impact of environments on efficiency relied on limited indicators and lacked in multicollinearity research. Finally, there was an absence of research on internal resource allocation affects operation efficiency. To fill this, this study aims to evaluate the current operation efficiency of the listed pharmaceutical enterprises in China from finance, innovation, and sustainability, and to reveal the influence environments on efficiency and the impact of the internal resource allocation on efficiency. To achieve these objectives, the study adopts a Three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis with undesirable outputs, integrated with Principal Component Analysis and Tobit regression, to comprehensively evaluate the operational efficiency of Chinese listed pharmaceutical enterprises over the ten-year period from 2013 to 2022 across the aforementioned three dimensions. The findings reveal generally low efficiency with significant regional disparities. North and Northwest China benefit from favorable environmental conditions, while Northeast China suffers from negative impacts. Improvements in external factors, such as innovation, living standards, labor supply, and openness level reduce costs, whereas internal uncontrollable factors, such as state-owned enterprise attributes, increase costs and suppress research and development. In terms of resource allocation, higher management expenses, and personnel allocations decrease efficiency, while increased sales expenditures and improved staff quality enhance efficiency. This study constructs a comprehensive framework for evaluating the operational efficiency and reveals the impact of external environments and internal resource allocation on efficiency. It provides empirical support for policymakers and operation managers seeking to improve the efficiency of the pharmaceutical companies.制药行业在保障公众健康、提升产业竞争力方面发挥着至关重要的作用。然而，中国制药行业仍面临诸多长期存在的挑战，包括高污染、创新不足以及利润率有限，这些问题制约了其全球竞争力。当前针对运营效率的研究多仅从财务或创新单一维度展开，缺乏一套完整的综合评估框架。此外，现有研究在探讨环境对效率的影响时，所采用的指标较为有限，且未开展多重共线性相关研究。最后，目前尚无针对内部资源配置如何影响运营效率的相关研究。为填补这一研究空白，本研究旨在从财务、创新与可持续发展三个维度，对中国上市制药企业当前的运营效率进行评估，并揭示外部环境对效率的影响以及内部资源配置对效率的作用机制。为实现上述研究目标，本研究采用包含非期望产出（undesirable outputs）的三阶段数据包络分析（Three-stage Data Envelopment Analysis），结合主成分分析（Principal Component Analysis）与托宾回归（Tobit regression）方法，从前述三个维度对2013至2022年这十年间中国上市制药企业的运营效率进行综合评估。研究结果显示，整体运营效率偏低，且存在显著的区域差异：华北与西北地区受益于良好的外部环境，而东北地区则受到环境的负面影响。诸如创新水平、居民生活水准、劳动力供给以及开放程度等外部因素的优化能够降低运营成本，而诸如国有企业属性这类内部不可控因素则会推高成本并抑制研发活动。在资源配置层面，较高的管理费用与人员配置会降低运营效率，而增加销售支出以及提升员工素质则有助于提升运营效率。本研究构建了一套完整的运营效率评估框架，揭示了外部环境与内部资源配置对效率的影响机制，可为致力于提升制药企业运营效率的政策制定者与运营管理者提供实证依据。