Management Practice in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Problems and Solutions from the Perspective of Open Innovation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

the paper is quite interesting and well written. Innovation regarding management in SME is a buzz issue but I have the feeling that the research outcomes are not that quite understandable. The research and the methods used seem to be appropriate, but the outcomes are fuzzy and not clear. To be more specific, the sentence " The data from this study show that there is no clea link between good management practicies and good results.." need to be more specific. For instance it would be interesting to use the methodology of Business Model Canvas, to cross check findings. I feel that there is a gap between the findings and the next steps needed to be followed.

Author Response

Please see responses in file attached:

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, thank you very much for your submission to the Journal of Open Innovation and for giving me the opportunity to read your paper on Management System Innovation in SEM. Your research goal is appreciated as it tackles a general problem of SME with an interesting methodological approach. Your article is well-designed. Your paper shows good quality. However, I found several issues that should be addressed before publication in the JOI can be considered:

1. Raising awareness is no scientific goal. Scientific goals are description, explanation, prediction, etc. Please reformulate.
2. The term “Management System” is usually used for systems based on norms such as ISO 9001. You don’t refer to such systems. Therefore, you should use another term, such as “management style”, “management philosophy”, “management practice” or something similar.
3. Please clearly state the problem you’re tackling in one sentence in the introduction.
4. Please clearly state your research goal in the introduction.
5. Please mention the contributions of your study in the introduction.
6. The methodology section is extremely short. Your study could not be reproduced by other scholars because it is too unclear what you did. Please be more specific. Name the methodologies, variables, control variables, etc.
7. Figure 5 is not readable. Please also show an enlarged part or the figure so that the reader gets an idea what is shown. The figure also needs a proper explanation
8. The conclusion is missing. Please add a summary of the main findings and the limitations of your study. What ware the theoretical and practical implications of your findings?
9. The reference list is way too short. Please add more recent (last 2, 3 years) literature.
10. It is also always recommended to cite recent papers from the journal that you try to target (JOI).
11. It is also recommended to refer to recent articles in leading Small Business Journals such as Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Small Business Strategy, and Small Business Economics.
12. Please also check this reference: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-019-00373-0.

I hope you find my comments helpful. Good luck with your revision!

Author Response

Please see responses in the file attached:

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the effort the authors invested in the revision. All my comments were addressed sufficiently. Therefore, from my point of view, the paper can be accepted for publication.

Keep up with the good work!