Do Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions by Emerging Market Enterprises Enhance Long-Term Productivity? The Host Country Market Size Effect Moderated by Technological Absorption Efforts

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

After reading the entire article, I noticed the following aspects related to:

Abstract. The authors clearly specify the main objective of the research, the methodology used, the results obtained and the conclusions of their research.

1. Introduction. The authors specify the current context of the research and present the main objective, mentioning the existing gap in the specialized literature and the contributions of their study to the specialized literature. I recommend the authors to shorten this section because, in my opinion, it is much too long.

2. Literature Review and Research Hypothesis. The authors launch 3 research hypotheses following the treatment of specialized literature, including drawing and presenting the conceptual framework of the research in figure 1. I recommend enlarging figure 1 so that it can be visualized and understood more correctly by readers.

3. Results. In this section, the authors describe the variables used, describe the source of the data.

4. Empirical Results. Materials and Methods used by the authors are described. The description of the empirical results obtained is based on the Baseline model, Endogenous treatment., Robustness Testing with Alternative Explanatory Variables.

5. Mechanism Analysis. The analysis of the obtained results is done by Examining Nonlinear Conduction Effects (Moderated Effects) through the data presented in tables and figures.

6. Discussion. In this section, the authors describe and interpret the obtained results, referring to previous specialized studies.

7. Conclusion and Policy Implications. The authors present the conclusions through their own contributions to the realization of this research, the policy implications. They also specify the limits of their research and future research directions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Find attached file for the review report.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Minor editing required.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper's authors do not know how to use citation format. e.g., the first sentence in Lines 27-31, "As ... foreign direct investment of Chinese enterprises (Ding Yibing and Liu Ziwei, 2019)."

The author is very lazy, and the subscripts are not properly labeled, resulting in reading difficulties. e. G., Line 307, 327, etc.

There are too many Chinese reference papers in the references, which makes me unsure of what journal and paper this is. I couldn't find this journal and paper, it turned out to be a Chinese journal and paper.

The multiple contents of this paper make people feel like it is in Chinese English. e.g., The second paragraph in Lines 43, "Most micro studies affirm that by cross-border M&As by emerging market ..." 

Multiple places in the paper reveal that the paper was translated from a language into English. Simply translating it into English is too difficult for readers to understand and read.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper is written in a confusing manner and lacks clarity. I would suggest the author(s) to

1. Rewrite the literature and state the hypothesis to be tested clearly.

2. The authors should state their contribution to the literature very clearly in the initial paragraphs.

English editing is required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf