Strategic Consistency and Structural Fairness in Dynamic Efficiency Evaluation: The Inertial Cross-Efficiency Malmquist Productivity Index

Cross-efficiency-based Malmquist productivity measurement involves both the selection of DEA-optimal weights across Malmquist states and the aggregation of heterogeneous peer assessments. This study develops the Inertial Cross-Efficiency Malmquist Productivity Index (I-CEMPI). The method retains the state-specific primary-optimal weighting sets and coordinates the four Malmquist states through minimum intertemporal adjustment, yielding a unique and reproducible weight representation while preserving primary DEA optimality. Peer Cross-Malmquist assessments are subsequently combined through strategic-perspective-balanced geometric aggregation, which preserves the multiplicative decomposition into efficiency change and technical change. Applying I-CEMPI to 440 listed Chinese SRDI “Little Giant” enterprises over 2019–2024 shows substantial scope for intertemporal selection within the empirical optimal sets. Perspective balancing produces larger changes in aggregate productivity assessments than intertemporal coordination, while comparisons with the standard MPI and a published Cross-GMPI show high overall agreement together with differences in a subset of firm-level classifications. Innovation productivity contracts over most horizons, with technical change accounting for the larger share of cumulative contraction. Strategic perspectives differ more clearly in their efficiency-change and technical-change compositions than in persistent aggregate productivity rankings.