Exploring the Factors Affecting Technology Transfer in Government-Funded Research Institutes: The Korean Case
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper examines an interesting topic, i.e. the impact of the resources and capabilities of government-funded research institutes on technology transfer. However the manuscript is quite far from being publishable. A number of major revisions are needed as described below.
Introduction
Lines 32-33 The authors start talking about Korea and, one line later, they concentrate on South Korea defining it as “Korea”. This creates some confusions. Are you talking at the beginning (line 32) about both North and South Korea and later on about South Korea only? This point should be clarified.
The introduction is too long and focused exclusively on the Korean case. Moreover, it presents a table: this is quite unusual for being made in an introduction section. Indeed, the paper investigates the impact of the resources of government-funded research institutes on technology transfer (as confirmed in the very first lines of the abstract) and the Korean case represents only an application of the investigated problem. Accordingly, I suggest the authors to re-design the introduction as follows:
- A short discussion about the way public-funded research institutes may impact on technology transfer, stressing the relevance of the topic
- The paper’s aim, with a clear specification of the research question(s)
- The gap in the literature that the paper intends to fill and the general novelty of the paper
- A short reminder of the paper.
Large part of the current introduction can be entirely moved to a new sub-section (e.g. 3.1 “Context of analysis”) within the methodological section. This new section will be devoted to the contextualization of the case-study through an in depth description of the country investigated (i.e. Korea).
Literature review
This section is overall fine. The literature is well presented and looks overall consistent with the aim of the paper.
Design and methodology
I suggest to rename this section as “Materials and methods” and its sub-sections as follows:
3.1 “The context of analysis” - see my comment above;
3.2 “Data” - where the author should describe in depth the data they have used to carry out the empirical investigation and should report data source and descriptive statistics;
3.3 “Methodology” - where the author should explain the methodology they have adopted to investigate the impact of the resources and capabilities of government-funded research institutes on technology transfer. At the moment this section is completely missing despite its relevance for the overall scientific soundness of the paper
Please note that sections 3.2 and 3.3 could be merged depending on their length.
Lines 283-304: hypotheses should be placed within the literature review (section 2) and not in section 3! Above all, literature in section 2 should be supportive of the hypotheses. At the moment, it is not clear how hypotheses originate although they should be strongly connected to the literature.
Results and findings
Please rename this section as “results” or, alternatively, as “findings”
Lines 307-311 should be moved to section 3.3 “Methodology”. They are currently misallocated.
Lines 312-318 should be moved to section 3.2 “Data”.
Lines 344-349 should be moved to section 3.3 “Methodology”. Moreover, the regression model should be reported in full in the methodological section and not only in the results’ tables.
Probably a final table reporting which hypotheses have been verified according to the econometric analysis could be of help.
Section 5
This section is overall fine. Just rename it as “Conclusions”.
The paper’s title should be renamed. I suggest: “Exploring the Factors Affecting the Technology Transfer of Government-funded Research Institutes: the Korean case.
Author Response
Thank you for providing these insights. We agree with you and have incorporated this suggestion throughout our paper.
Introduction
Point 1: Lines 32-33 The authors start talking about Korea and, one line later, they concentrate on South Korea defining it as “Korea”. This creates some confusions. Are you talking at the beginning (line 32) about both North and South Korea and later on about South Korea only? This point should be clarified
Response 1:The scope of this study is limited to South Korea. We defined “South Korea” as “Korea” at the very beginning of the introduction.
Please refer to line 51~53.
Point 2: The introduction is too long and focused exclusively on the Korean case. Moreover, it presents a table: this is quite unusual for being made in an introduction section. Indeed, the paper investigates the impact of the resources of government-funded research institutes on technology transfer (as confirmed in the very first lines of the abstract) and the Korean case represents only an application of the investigated problem. Accordingly, I suggest the authors to re-design the introduction as follows:
- A short discussion about the way public-funded research institutes may impact on technology transfer, stressing the relevance of the topic
- The paper’s aim, with a clear specification of the research question(s)
- The gap in the literature that the paper intends to fill and the general novelty of the paper
- A short reminder of the paper.
Response 2:
We re-designed and rewrote the introduction section, trying to include every aspect you suggested, and deleted the table.
Please refer to line 31~86.
Point 3: Large part of the current introduction can be entirely moved to a new sub-section (e.g. 3.1 “Context of analysis”) within the methodological section. This new section will be devoted to the contextualization of the case-study through an in depth description of the country investigated (i.e. Korea).
Response 3: We moved a large part of the introduction, which us devoted to the contextualization of the case-study through an in depth description of Korea, to a new sub-section (3.1. “The context of analysis”).
Please refer to line 184~217.
Design and methodology
Point 4: I suggest to rename this section as “Materials and methods” and its sub-sections as follows
Response 4: We renamed this section as “Materials and methods”.
Please refer to line 183.
Point 5: 3.1 “The context of analysis” - see my comment above;
Response 5: We made a new sub-section (3.1. “The context of analysis”).
Please refer to line 184~217.
Point 6: 3.2 “Data” - where the author should describe in depth the data they have used to carry out the empirical investigation and should report data source and descriptive statistics
Response 6: We made a new sub-section (3.2. “Data source”) to report data source and provide descriptive statistics.
Please refer to line 220~228.
Point 7: 3.3 “Methodology” - where the author should explain the methodology they have adopted to investigate the impact of the resources and capabilities of government-funded research institutes on technology transfer. At the moment this section is completely missing despite its relevance for the overall scientific soundness of the paper. Please note that sections 3.2 and 3.3 could be merged depending on their length.
Response 7: We made a new sub-section (3.5. “Methodology”) to explain the methodology we have adopted to investigate the impact of the resources and capabilities of government-funded research institutes on technology transfer. (Panel data analysis / Fixed-effects and random-effects models)
Please refer to line 307~341.
We added new sub-sections (3.3. “Dependent Variable”, 3.4.” Independent Variable”) for more detailed explanation on variables used in the paper.
Please refer to line 230~305.
Point 8: Lines 283-304: hypotheses should be placed within the literature review (section 2) and not in section 3! Above all, literature in section 2 should be supportive of the hypotheses. At the moment, it is not clear how hypotheses originate although they should be strongly connected to the literature.
Response 8: We placed the “Research Hypotheses” section within the literature review, as a sub-section (2.2.”Hyphothese”) to strengthen the connection between the literature and hypotheses.
Please refer to line 145~181.
Results and findings
Point 9: Please rename this section as “results” or, alternatively, as “findings”
Response 9: I renamed this section as “Result”.
Please refer to line 343.
Point 10: Lines 307-311 should be moved to section 3.3 “Methodology”. They are currently misallocated
Response 10: I moved this part to section 3.5. “Methodology”.
Please refer to line 320~322.
Point 11: Lines 312-318 should be moved to section 3.2 “Data”
Response 11: I moved this part to section 3.2. “Data source”.
Please refer to line 222~228.
Point 12: Lines 344-349 should be moved to section 3.3 “Methodology”. Moreover, the regression model should be reported in full in the methodological section and not only in the results’ tables
Response 12: I moved this part to section 3.5. “Methodology” and reported in detail about panel data analysis.
Please refer to line 324~339.
Section 5
Point 13: This section is overall fine. Just rename it as “Conclusions”
Response 13: I renamed this section as “Conclusions”.
Please refer to line 520.
Point 14: The paper’s title should be renamed. I suggest: “Exploring the Factors Affecting the Technology Transfer of Government-funded Research Institutes: the Korean case
Response 14: I renamed the title as “Exploring the Factors Affecting Technology Transfer in Government-funded Research Institutes: The Korean case”.
Please refer to line 2~3.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity of reading and reviewing your manuscript. The authors put a lot of effort in their article and I acknowledge it. I will suggest some revisions based on the paper:
1.The introduction section should briefly describe the aims, identify the research gap and the potential contribution of the current manuscript. In this regard, I will re-write this section and move what is now put in the Introduction in a new section, named for example Background of the study or similar
2.please rename 2nd section as Literature Review
3.consider removing some charts, for example Figure 2, Figure 3
4. a Discussion of the findings would be beneficial, either as a separate section or integrated in the Results and findings section
5. A style and language revision is needed, there are some writing issues.
Good luck!
Author Response
Thank you for providing these insights. We agree with you and have incorporated this suggestion throughout our paper.
Point 1: The introduction section should briefly describe the aims, identify the research gap and the potential contribution of the current manuscript. In this regard, I will re-write this section and move what is now put in the Introduction in a new section, named for example Background of the study or similar
Response 1:
We re-designed and rewrote the introduction section, trying to briefly describe the aims, identify the research gap and the potential contribution of the current manuscript, and moved a large part of the introduction, which us devoted to the contextualization of the case-study through an in depth description of Korea, to a new sub-section (3.1. “The context of analysis”).
Please refer to line 31~86.
Point 2: please rename 2nd section as Literature Review
Response 2: We renamed this section as “Literature Review and hypotheses” as hypotheses section was moved into a sub-section (2.2.”Hyphothese”) to strengthen the connection between the literature and hypotheses.
Please refer to line 90.
Point 3: consider removing some charts, for example Figure 2, Figure 3
Response 3: We removed Figure 2 and Figure 3.
Please refer to line 354~365.
Point 4: a Discussion of the findings would be beneficial, either as a separate section or integrated in the Results and findings section
Response 4: We made two sub-sections as “5.1. Results” and “5.2. Discussions” in “5. Conclusions” section.
Point 5: A style and language revision is needed, there are some writing issues
Response 5: To address the issue, this paper has just undergone “MDPI English editing service”.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Journal: Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market and Complexity (JOItmC)
Article title: A Study on the Factors Affecting the Technology Transfer of Government-funded Research Institutes: With a focus on the mission types
General Comments:
This article studies the impact of the resources and capabilities of government-funded research institutes (GRIs) on technology transfer in South Korea. The research question is how the 21 government-funded research institutes (GRIs), representing three mission types – basic future leading, public infrastructure, and industrialization – transfer technology, using a panel analysis for the 2015–2019 period. The authors reached the conclusions that mission attributes are an important driver of technology transfer performance.
Overview:
The paper is well written and the empirical work appears to be carefully and correctly done. The research question is VERY GOOD and it does make a sufficient new contribution to the literature to be suitable for the Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market and Complexity (JOItmC). In fact, the literature on influence of the impact of the resources and capabilities of government-funded research institutes (GRIs) on technology transfer is quite inexistent. The MAJOR contribution of the paper is the analysis of 21 government-funded research institutes (GRIs) technology transfer to the society and their drivers. The paper is very interesting; and in my view, it needs to be MINOR improved to reach the standard required for publication in this journal.
Specific Comments:
- Introduction: theoretical approach + novelty + results (better explanation);
- Literature review: is quite large (4 pages)/ sometimes is redundant and much detailed
- Conclusions: is quite large; try to reduce it
- Reference: try to reduce the number of papers and more papers after 2015
General considerations: the idea of the article is very interesting; the results are good and with better respect for theoretical approach, novelty, and decreasing of the paper length (minor changes), it can be published in Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market and Complexity (JOItmC).
Author Response
Thank you for providing these insights. We agree with you and have incorporated this suggestion throughout our paper.
Point 1: Introduction: theoretical approach + novelty + results (better explanation)
Response 1: We redesigned and rewrote the introduction section, trying to better explain the theoretical approach, novelty and results.
Please refer to line 31~86.
Point 2: Literature review: is quite large (4 pages)/ sometimes is redundant and much detailed
Response 2: We reduced the size of Literature review section by removing some phrases that are redundant and much detailed. We placed the explanations on variables to section 3 “Materials and methods”.
Point 3: Conclusions: is quite large; try to reduce it
Response 3: We reduced the size of Conclusions section by removing some phrases.
Please refer to line 520~584.
Point 4: Reference: try to reduce the number of papers and more papers after 2015
Response 4: We added more papers after 2015 and reduced number of papers by removing unrelated phrases in section 1, 2 and 5. But total number of papers were increased because of re-designing structure and re-writing some sections.
Please refer to line 594~628.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors, the manuscript looks now definitely improved. Well done!
