Investigating the Application of Digital Tools for Information Management in Financial Control: Evidence from Bulgaria

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Paper Reviewed:

Investigating the application of digital tools for information management in financial control: Evidence from Bulgaria

Comments by Reviewer:

1.     Please write in the abstract how “innovative” the field of study and/or the research question (RQ) you seek to answer is. As it is now, it does not sound evident.

2.     Please clearly and expressly write the RQ(s) in the abstract. For example: “This research/study seeks to answer the following research question(s): (…)?”.

3.     Also, in the Abstract, please remove “In conclusion” and “article” at the beginning of the following sentence: “In conclusion, the article emphasizes the importance of digital transformation in financial control.” Start the sentence with “This study emphasizes the importance (…)”.

4.     Please make the results very clear in the abstract. Meaning: you should write a sentence expressly indicating the results: “Results show that (…)”.

5.     Still in the Abstract, please clearly write what is/are the contribution(s) of the study to the respective field of study (Financial Management?!?, etc.).

6.     Also, the RQ should be referred to at the end of the Introduction, in a separate paragraph just before the final one that starts with “The article is structured as follows (…)”. For example, you could write the following paragraph: “To address this issue, we seek to answer the Research Question (RQ): “How does implementing modern technologies affect the efficiency and accuracy of information used in control institutions?”. And only then, the final paragraph may appear: “The article is structured as follows (…)”.

7.     Also, at the end of the “Literature Review” section, just before the new section “Materials and Methods,” you should make it very clear, as a way of reminding the reader, what the RQ that you are seeking to answer is. I understand that, yes, you somehow already addressed this by writing, “This research highlights the need for continued investment in digital technologies and training to maximize the benefits of their application in financial control.”. But it would appear even more evident if you expressly wrote two sentences looking something like this: “However, there remains a need for continued investment in digital technologies and training to maximize the benefits of their application in financial control. This is the focus of our research.” And then, the new section begins (“Materials and Methods”).

8.     Also, at the beginning of the Discussion section, the first paragraph should start recalling the study's RQ(s) to the reader. You should be very specific, expressly writing, for example: “Considering the study's RQ(s) — “……?”, results allow us to interpret, deduce/induce that (….), etc. etc. etc.”

9.     Finally, I do not see any mention of the main “Limitations” of the study or any exploration of possible “Future Research Directions.” Thus, you must write the study's main “Limitations” and possible “Future Research Directions.” These should be incorporated at the end of the “Discussion” section in the format of sub-sections.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This study is to identify the applications of digital tools implemented in Bulgarian institutions and to assess the impact of the digital tools on information risk management. 

Comments:

(1)  Line 64: Although the authors’ main academic interests are in financial control and auditing, the discussions and the results have very little to do with auditing. There is no mentioning of “auditing” in Table 1. In Table 2, “audit” is only significantly positively correlated with Risk analysis and management. Information risk management is not auditing. I don’t know enough about Bulgaria to comment whether auditing is important to its economy. If so, maybe the authors should narrow down their focus to auditing and demonstrate how auditing with digital tools makes auditing more effective.    

(2)  Hypothesis 2 is confusing. What relationships are you hypothesizing? 

(3)  In Section 3, please explain “the control institutions” in Bulgaria.  Are these government agencies or public companies? What percentage of the GDP comes from these control institutions? I like to get a sense how your study helps understand the Bulgarian economy as a whole. 

(4)  Lines 316-323: I am not sure whether Kendall ranking method is proper here. Which variables are nominal? Only testing the correlation seems to be weak. Have you tried nominal logistic regression? 

(5)  For Section 4, it would be helpful if you could describe Table 1, for examples, the rows and the columns and the numbers in the table. As for the discussions of Table 1 (on pages 7 & 8), it would be helpful to refer to some numbers in the table. 

(6)  Lines 360-363: Which numbers do you refer to in Table 1 that suggests ERP and CRM systems optimize data collection? From Table 1, only the data encryption, hashing and caching (the ninth/tenth rows) is significantly positively correlated with collecting information (the first column). I am not sure where the data support your conclusion in this paragraph. 

(7)  I cannot connect the discussions in 2.3 with Table 2. Please explain the rows of Table 2. 

(8)  Please use the results in Table 2 in the discussions on pages 8-9. 

(9)  In Section 5, you discussed some challenges. This is good, in particular, the adoption of new technologies should be analyzed in terms of benefits and costs. Tables 1 and 2 certainly focus on the benefits. I don’t know whether any questions regarding the costs are included in your survey. If no, please explain why. Please also explain the potential ways to evaluate the costs of implementing digital tools.  

The paper should be edited for English. Some sentences are long and difficult to read. The use of "this" makes it harder to understand what you try to express. The followings are a few examples. 

(1)  The sentence starting in Line 43 should be revised.

(2)  Line 100: what does “This..” refer to?

(3)  Line 104: “This way,” ?

(4)  Line 122, what does “this method” refer to?

(5)  Line 148, “Cloud services…”

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations!

Thank you for the revision. The manuscript now looks much cleaner, is well-structured, and sounds more like a scientific study.

I wish the authors the very best and look forward to their future studies, as stated in the newly incorporated section on "limitations and future work."

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all of my comments to my satisfaction. I have no further comments/suggestions.

I don't have any suggestions.