Operational efficiency of China’s sea-related listed companies and influencing factors: Based on the three-hierarchy Meta-frontier EBM and Tobit models

[Objective] Considering the strategic guideline of “Ocean Power”, a scientific measurement of the operational efficiency of China’s sea-related listed companies and support for sea-related listed companies to be better and stronger are of great significance to consolidate the micro foundation of the development of the marine economy and promote the expansion of the space for the development of the blue economy. [Methods] This study used the explainable boosting machine (EBM) model based on Pearson correlation coefficient, combined with the three-hierarchy meta-frontier framework, to scientifically measure the operational efficiency of China’s sea-related listed companies during the period of 2014-2022, and further decomposed the inefficiency loss to explore its internal and external influencing factors. [Results] The study showed that: (1) Overall, the operational efficiency of Chinese sea-related listed companies was on an upward trend and showed obvious stage characteristics. (2) From the perspective of industry-ownership heterogeneity, the operational efficiency of emerging sea-related companies was leading in the early stages, but the operational efficiency of traditional sea-related companies showed a significant trend of subsequent growth; the operational efficiency of private sea-related companies was at the forefront, and basically formed a pattern of development in which private enterprises were leading and state-owned enterprises were following. (3) From the perspective of inefficiency decomposition, management inefficiency loss was the key reason affecting the improvement of operational efficiency of sea-related listed companies, followed by industrial heterogeneity efficiency loss and ownership heterogeneity efficiency loss. (4) Based on the analysis of influencing factors, the management inefficiency loss of sea-related listed companies was significantly negatively correlated with enterprise size and positively correlated with business solvency, while the level of regional economic development significantly and negatively affected their technical inefficiency loss. [Conclusion] During the 14th Five Year Plan period, we should further optimize the layout of the marine industry, improve the market-oriented development environment, and enhance the management level of the enterprises, to explore the effective path to promoting the operational efficiency of sea-related listed companies.