Abstract
Many activities have been used to impart knowledge and foster the quality of education at higher education institutions: mainly teaching and research. Higher education institutions have typically focused on the adoption of teaching and research independently, but in many instances, both activities coexist. By taking into account the coexistence, this study empirically analyzed why teaching and research activities appear together and how joint adoption of the activities has economic impacts on the performance of the higher education institutions. To do so, this study tested the existence of complementarity between teaching and research using supermodularity through the data envelopment analysis approach. Therefore, the empirical result showed that complementarity between teaching and research confirms that the adoption of one activity strengthens the adoption decision about the other activity. This implies that the institutions that execute both activities simultaneously become more productive rather than adopting a single activity. Moreover, it is important for academic decision-makers to take decisions in order to allow universities to achieve economies of scale.