38 Int. J. Applied Management Science, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2016 Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Short-run decomposition of profit efficiency and its relationship with the Tunisian manufacturing capacity utilisation Kamel Helali* and Maha Kalai Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax, University of Sfax, Airfield Road Km 4, BP 1088, 3018, Sfax, Tunisia Email: helali.kalai.maha@gmail.com Email: helali.kalai.maha@gmail.com *Corresponding author Thouraya Boujelbene Higher Institute for Business Administration of Sfax, University of Sfax, Airport Road Km 4, BP 1013, 3018, Sfax, Tunisia Email: thourayaboujelbene@yahoo.fr Abstract: This study investigated the measure of the quantity by which the profit of a one-output, multi-input firm deviates from a maximum short-run profit, and then the decomposition of this profit gap into its components. We examined this work and tried to apply it to the Tunisian manufacturing sector. We found a measure of the contribution of the unused capacity, the technical and the allocative inefficiencies to this profit gap. This study was carried out by presenting the measurement of the ray of the economic capacity which involves the short-run profit maximisation, with a constant output. Then we described how the gap between the observed profit and the maximum one can be calculated and decomposed using linear programming methods. Our empirical results, involving data on six sectors of the manufacturing industry during the period 1961–2010, suggest that the profit levels reach below the potential ones and the difference might be attributed to the unused capacity. Keywords: capacity utilisation; profit decomposition; profitability; technical and allocative efficiency; Tunisian manufacturing sector; Tunisia. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Helali, K., Kalai, M. and Boujelbene, T. (2016) ‘Short-run decomposition of profit efficiency and its relationship with the Tunisian manufacturing capacity utilisation’, Int. J. Applied Management Science, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.38–51. Biographical notes: Kamel Helali holds a PhD in Quantitative Methods and is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax, University of Sfax.