Innovation, Network Capabilities, and Sustainable Development of Regional Economies in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is clearer, but a lot is still unclear.
Various concepts are left unclear. Based on my inferences about the underlying meaning, I am making some suggestions below. As can be seen by some examples below, there are still grammar and language issues. Given below are a very limited number of examples; hopefully a journal editor will be able to clarify the remaining language issues:
a. The term “Innovation subject” actually seems to refer to innovating institutions. If this is correct, I would suggest that the latter term be used.
b. The language is still not idiomatic, possibly translated literally from Chinese, hence confusing. For example, on line 45, the phrase “Featured with knowledge spillover,” should probably be “Characterised by knowledge spillover.”
c. Line 55/56 “Regional innovation network provides the access to external diverse knowledge, technology, information, and network capabilities are about using them effectively” probably should be “Regional innovation networks provide the access to external diverse knowledge, technology and information; and network capabilities are about using them effectively.”
d. “region inequality” in line 58 is regional inequality.
e. “less development areas” in line 60 should be “less developed areas.”
Now to some more substantive issues. The terms “Scientific Knowledge Network” and “Technical Knowledge Network” are prominent in the abstract. However, they do not appear in the text until the Data section. This suggests that they are the empirical equivalent of other theoretical concepts. If this is the case, some discussion of this should occur in sections 1 and 2.
These two theoretical concepts are “knowledge acquisition capability” and “knowledge control capability.” Di is used to measure the knowledge acquisition capability, while Ci is used to measure knowledge control capability. The authors may be using the term SKN to refer to a system devoted to knowledge acquisition (whose output is, hence, measured by the number of coauthored papers), while the term TKN refers to a system devoted to knowledge (whose output is thus based on the number of patents).
Or perhaps SKN and TKN are unrelated to knowledge acquisition and knowledge control and simply refer to two different outputs of a single system, articles and patents respectively. (This second interpretation seems to be correct, since Gini coefficients are defined separately for SKN. On the other hand, if there is a single set of nodes and paths, what is the meaning of a Gini coefficient being defined for degree centrality for SKN (and presumably a separate Gini coefficient for degree centrality for TKN).
The above points should be clarified.
The measure X is still unclear. The text states “Xij represents the degree of the node i and j.” What does degree mean? Presumably, as in graph theory, the degree of a node is the number of paths that are incident to the node. It is still worthwhile to state this clearly. In any case, how is this graph defined? How are the paths defined? Is it defined by whether a pair of nodes (research institutions(?)) have a cooperation agreement? Or since the nodes seem to be cities, are nodes defined by whether two cities have a mutual research cooperation agreement? Or is degree measured in some other way, here?
Are paths defined similarly for purposes of measurement of C as for X?
Is N*1 on line 294 and 297 the same as Nx1? What are the components of the Nx1 vector Yeast? Are they the number of papers/patents for each of N cities? If so, how can, how can Yeast, Ymiddle and Ywest all have the same length? There must be a different number of cities in the east, middle and west…
What is size in Table 2? Is it the size the number of nodes? And is cooperation frequency in Table 2 is the average or sum of pairwise cooperation frequencies between city nodes? Some clarity would be of value.
Once these basic issues are clarified, it will be possible to ask more interesting questions. For example, it is not clear what the conclusions of the study are. The analysis of Gini coefficients obviously has some implications regarding knowledge development, but this needs to be brought out clearly.
Author Response
See attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, I appreciated your effort in addressing my previous comments and suggestions. I think that the structure of your paper and the readability of the manuscript improved significantly.
Now, I only suggest revising more adequately the English language. Maybe, the support of a mother tongue is due.
Good luck
Author Response
We have asked a specialist to edit the language.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Referee report on Innovation, Networked Capabilities and Regional Development in China
This paper looks very interesting and seems to be about how various policy variables, such as location of state institutes and availability of state and private capital affect the production of technological knowledge. However, the writing of the paper is of poor quality and the english is often unintelligible; as a result, the point being made by the authors is unclear.
The introduction needs to be rewritten with much greater clarity, so that the hypotheses of the paper can be properly understood and appreciated. For example, the sentence “The capacity to acquire external resources refers to the frequency the node cooperates with other nodes, and the degree centrality is common represented” on line 58 and 59 is ungrammatical and unclear. Unfortunately, the whole paper is subject to these kinds of problems. Some kind of image with a graph showing the difference between acquisition capabity and control capability would also help.
The issues being discussed would seem to be global and not just pertaining to China. However, no discussion of the phenomenon in other countries is presented, and there is no discussion of the literature as it pertains to other countries.
From the discussion and from the empirical work, it is not clear how the paper relates to “sustainability.” In what sense is this word being used?
The mathematical formulae used in equations 1 and 2 to define these two concepts are also not sufficient to clarify the issue. For example, the LHS in equation (1) has an ‘i’ subscript. However, on the RHS, the terms are summed over the very same “i” subscript. In the denominator of equation (1), there is a max function, which seems to have a single argument; this doesn’t make sense.
Equation (6) on line 263 is presented in the form of a matrix. However, the matrix multiplying the coefficient vector is diagonal. Hence all we have is three different equations with no interdependencies between equations. What is the purpose of presenting these three equations in matrix form? Is there something that the reader is supposed to infer from this?
As far as the empirical work, this is also difficult to understand. Here are some of the problems I encountered:
· Table 1, refers to “Times of cooperation.” However, it is not clear what this refers to. This term is not used anywhere else in the paper.
· On page 7, section 4, there is a reference to a Gini coefficient: “The Gini coefficient of degree centrality of each city increased from 0.49 in 2000 to 0.64 in 2012.” How is this “Gini coefficient” computed for each city? Or is this a measure of the extent to which there is variation across cities (as opposed to per city) in terms of their centrality scores?
· With this assumption, I might infer that the abilities of cities to control resources is getting more and more concentrated. Is this the right inference to make? If so, what else is section 4 and 5 telling us? Is there some analysis of this phenomenon that might be done to add to the understanding of what has happened over time?
· How are the tables to be read? Are the cities the units of analysis? The number of observations is not given. What are the dependent variables for the regression? The tables 3 and 4 should have this information. From Table 2, it would seem that “innovation output” is the dependent variable. This is described as “output value.” It is not clear what is being referred to. From the discussion starting on line 353, it seems that it may be the case that this is some kind of a number that is published by the government. Is this the case? (Or is it the number of papers and patents?) Summary statistics of this are not provided. The t-stats should be given, in addition to the degree of significance.
· Does it not make sense to think of all of China as a single network? What happens to the results, if this is done? Why not estimate the system of equations for both points in time simultaneously, so that hypotheses regarding changes in coefficient sizes can be tested?
· Why are the control variables not shown in the tables? Why are they considered control variables? They also seem to be interesting in their own right as policy instruments.
· Should there be a two-level empirical model that first models acquisition and control capability and then secondly looks at the impact of these capabilities on output
The paper looks interesting and may very well cast a lot of light on optimal knowledge development strategies. But it’s difficult from the current presentation to figure out what the issues are and what the results are.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
1) This paper looks very interesting and seems to be about how various policy variables, such as location of state institutes and availability of state and private capital affect the production of technological knowledge. However, the writing of the paper is of poor quality and the English is often unintelligible; as a result, the point being made by the authors is unclear.
Answer: We have further revised English, and hopefully the revision meets
Reviewer 1’s expectation.
2) The introduction needs to be rewritten with much greater clarity, so that the hypotheses of the paper can be properly understood and appreciated. For example, the sentence “The capacity to acquire external resources refers to the frequency the node cooperates with other nodes, and the degree centrality is common represented” on line 58 and 59 is ungrammatical and unclear. Unfortunately, the whole paper is subject to these kinds of problems. Some kind of image with a graph showing the difference between acquisition capability and control capability would also help.
Answer: As suggested, we have revised the introduction section. The lines of 58-59
have also been rewritten, and a figure has been added to explain the difference between acquisition capability and control capability (Page 2).
3) The issues being discussed would seem to be global and not just pertaining to China. However, no discussion of the phenomenon in other countries is presented, and there is no discussion of the literature as it pertains to other countries.
Answer: In this paper, we focus on China, so we don’t mention and discuss the
situation of other countries. The literature review does include materials
generalized from studies of other countries. We also mention future research (Page 21).
4) From the discussion and from the empirical work, it is not clear how the paper relates to “sustainability.” In what sense is this word being used?
Answer: The relationships between innovation and sustainable development have been dscussed, please see the details in pages 1.
5) The mathematical formulae used in equations 1 and 2 to define these two concepts are also not sufficient to clarify the issue. For example, the LHS in equation (1) has an ‘i’ subscript. However, on the RHS, the terms are summed over the very same “i” subscript. In the denominator of equation (1), there is a max function, which seems to have a single argument; this doesn’t make sense.
Answer: These two equations 1 and 2 have be rewritten, please see the details in pages 7-8.
6) Equation (6) on line 263 is presented in the form of a matrix. However, the matrix multiplying the coefficient vector is diagonal. Hence all we have is three different equations with no interdependencies between equations. What is the purpose of presenting these three equations in matrix form? Is there something that the reader is supposed to infer from this?
Answer: The reason why we divided China into three regions has been added in the text, please see details in page 8.
7) Table 1, refers to “Times of cooperation.” However, it is not clear what this refers to. This term is not used anywhere else in the paper.
Answer: Table 1 provides basic information about SKN and TKN. “Times of cooperation” is changed to “cooperation frequency”, which refers to the sum of the cooperation times of the two cities of each year. The description of it has been added in page 6. In figures 3, 4, 6, 7, the city cooperation means the “time of cooperation” of the upper left corner (pages in 11-12, 14-15).
8) On page 7, section 4, there is a reference to a Gini coefficient: “The Gini coefficient of degree centrality of each city increased from 0.49 in 2000 to 0.64 in 2012.” How is this “Gini coefficient” computed for each city? Or is this a measure of the extent to which there is variation across cities (as opposed to per city) in terms of their centrality scores?
Answer: The measure of Gini coefficient has been added in the part 3.2 3, please see the details in page 8.
9) With this assumption, I might infer that the abilities of cities to control resources is getting more and more concentrated. Is this the right inference to make? If so, what else is section 4 and 5 telling us? Is there some analysis of this phenomenon that might be done to add to the understanding of what has happened over time?
Answer: As the Gini coefficient of control capability is higher than acquisition capability in both networks, it is true as description in page 9 “there are some cities to control the flow and dissemination of knowledge in the network” as well as “the inequality of control capability is becoming more dramatical” (page 13).
The results of the Gini coefficient only indicate whether the inequality among all cities in the network is larger or smaller. It doesn’t include the concept of location and cannot explain the spatial distribution and evolution characteristics of cities that cause regional inequality to become larger or smaller. That is the meaning of section 4 and 5, which describe the spatial evolution features of acquisition and control capabilities of SKN and TKN, please see detail in pages 10, 13.
10) How are the tables to be read? Are the cities the units of analysis? The number of observations is not given. What are the dependent variables for the regression? The tables 3 and 4 should have this information. From Table 2, it would seem that “innovation output” is the dependent variable. This is described as “output value.” It is not clear what is being referred to. From the discussion starting on line 353, it seems that it may be the case that this is some kind of a number that is published by the government. Is this the case? (Or is it the number of papers and patents?) Summary statistics of this are not provided. The t-stats should be given, in addition to the degree of significance.
Answer: The tables 2, 3, 4, 5 have revised, please see details in pages 9, 18-19. The “output value” is the output value of biotechnology industry, the data is from the database of all state-owned and above-scale non-state-owned industrial enterprises, namely Chinese industrial enterprises database, please see details in page XX. In the tables 3-5, * or # is the P value which can show the significance, please see details in pages 18-19.
11) Does it not make sense to think of all of China as a single network? What happens to the results, if this is done? Why not estimate the system of equations for both points in time simultaneously, so that hypotheses regarding changes in coefficient sizes can be tested?
Answer: If we can get all the data, it would be the best, but it is very difficult and costly. However, it is reasonable to taking the output of biotechnological industry to represent sustainable development of China, as described in page XX, biotechnology output value is significantly correlated with GDP at city and province level in the year 2012. The result indicates that biotechnology network can be used to represent regional innovation network, please see details in page 6.
On the one hand, because China’s regional development level has quite inequality in the three regions (eastern, middle and western), the role of the same variables in different regions may be different. On the other hand, as the developing of three regions, the contribution of the same variable to the same region at different time points may also vary. In addition, compared with coefficient size of variables, this paper pays more attention to the positive or negative coefficients of the independent variables. Based on the above reasons, this paper uses the spatial regime model to compare and analyze the two years of data, please see details in pages 8, 16-17.
12) Why are the control variables not shown in the tables? Why are they considered control variables? They also seem to be interesting in their own right as policy instruments.
Answer: According to the definition of variables (Table 2 in page 9), the independent variables, control variables, are reorganized, please see details in Tables 3, 4, 5 in pages 18-19. As discussed in the analytic framework (pages 4-5), during the innovation process, innovation resources and innovation subjects are the key factors for the innovation outputs, in addition to that, innovation climate is also essential, enhance, we consider the three innovation climate variables as control variables. based on the model results, we also provide policy implication, please see details in page 20.
13) Should there be a two-level empirical model that first model acquisition and control capability and then secondly looks at the impact of these capabilities on output
Answer: Thanks for the suggestion, after rerunning the regression, we found that R2 is too small to fit the model requirements if there are only the acquisition and control capabilities variables. This also indicates that the innovation output is the combination results of various elements, such as innovation network, innovation resources, innovation subjects and innovation climate, please see details in pages 16-17.
14) The paper looks interesting and may very well cast a lot of light on optimal knowledge development strategies. But it’s difficult from the current presentation to figure out what the issues are and what the results are.
Answer: The results and implications are revised, please see details in pages 20-21.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
thank you very much for this interesting paper. Despite the quality of the content and the evident effort in the research design, I have some major concerns that I hope you will be able to address.
1) English needs moderate revision because of a lot of spelling mistakes and typos (for example: page 3, row 132 plural in the place of singular; page 5, row 221 "spatially spatial dependance"; pag 7, row 267, east is repeated two times; etc...). I recommend to ask for the support of a professional proofreader;
2) In the abstract, the phrase from row 18 to row 21 is not very clear as it is formulated. Please, reconsider rewriting;
3) The introduction is well structurede, but I also suggest to expand the part form row 55 to 65, because it represents the core of your research.Please, specify better which kind of contribution you intend to give to the state of the art of knowledge in the field. In general, I suggest to better clarify what is meant for sustainable regional development in your conceptualization of the research amd what is in CHINA the relationship between the urban and city level of territorial innovation and the regional dimension of the innovation itself.
4) in the literature background, it is not clear for me what is the contribution of the first sub-section 2.1, beacause, another time, the relationship between regional development and sustainable development is not analysed in depth. Finally, I suggest to delete this paragraph and to better link the premise of your conceptual framework to the literature on Regional Innovation and economic development.
5) Consequently, the sub-section 2.2 could be expanded and could better link the concepts of regional development, innovation networks and sustainable development. A clear definition of these three fundamental elements is lacking and, furthermore, the literature gap you aim at filling in in not evident form this analysis.
6) In the methodological section, equations (1) and (2) are not convincing me.
7) The methodological section has to be improved by specifying properly in this section what are the variables of your model. In section 3.2.3 you mention generaically "the variables", but, until the results section, it is not clear for a reader of which variables you are speaking and howe do you measure them. CAan you add a sub-section indicating all the variables you use in your model and which steps you perform to measure them and to obtain different results you discuss in the subsequent sections?
8) I suggest to add in the maps reported in Figure 3,4,5 and Figure 6 the right position of cities you mention in your analysis.
9) At page 9, finally, I can find the variables used for the study. I think that this table, complemented with a more precise definition of the measures associated to each of variables, has to be moved in the methodological section.
10) in the conclusions, at rows 472-473 you say that the dimension of the SKN is smaller than of that of TKN. Is it right??
11) Finally, limitations of the research and further developments are not mentioned in this study.
Good luck
Author Response
1) English needs moderate revision because of a lot of spelling mistakes and typos (for example: page 3, row 132 plural in the place of singular; page 5, row 221 "spatially spatial dependence "; page 7, row 267, east is repeated two times; etc...). I recommend to asking for the support of a professional proofreader;
Answer: English has been revised. Please see details in pages 1, 2, 5, 8, 16, 17, 20.
2) In the abstract, the phrase from row 18 to row 21 is not very clear as it is formulated. Please, reconsider rewriting;
Answer: The phrase has been rewritten, please see details in page 1.
3) The introduction is well structured, but I also suggest to expanding the part form row 55 to 65, because it represents the core of your research. Please, specify better which kind of contribution you intend to give to the state of the art of knowledge in the field. In general, I suggest to better clarify what is meant for sustainable regional development in your conceptualization of the research and what is in CHINA the relationship between the urban and city level of territorial innovation and the regional dimension of the innovation itself.
Answer: The part has been expanded, please see details in page 2. The relationships between innovation and sustainable development have been clarified, please see details in page 1. Besides, the reason why we chose urban innovation network has been add in page 6.
4) in the literature background, it is not clear for me what is the contribution of the first sub-section 2.1, because, another time, the relationship between regional development and sustainable development is not analyzed in depth. Finally, I suggest deleting this paragraph and to better link the premise of your conceptual framework to the literature on Regional Innovation and economic development.
Answer: The sub-section 2.1 is deleted and we have added the literature review of regional innovation system, please see details in pages 3-4.
5) Consequently, the sub-section 2.2 could be expanded and could better link the concepts of regional development, innovation networks and sustainable development. A clear definition of these three fundamental elements is lacking and, furthermore, the literature gap you aim at filling in in not evident form this analysis.
Answer: The sub-section 2.2 has been expanded, please see details in page 3-4. And the definitions of sustainable development and innovation networks are added in pages 1 and 3. As we focus on innovation networks and sustainable development, the definition of development does not add in the paper. Besides, the research gaps have been added in page 3.
6) In the methodological section, equations (1) and (2) are not convincing me.
Answer: The equations has been rewritten, please see details in pages 7-8.
7) The methodological section has to be improved by specifying properly in this section what are the variables of your model. In section 3.2.3 you mention generically "the variables", but, until the results section, it is not clear for a reader of which variables you are speaking and how do you measure them. Can you add a sub-section indicating all the variables you use in your model and which steps you perform to measure them and to obtain different results you discuss in the subsequent sections?
Answer: The description of variables has been added in part 3.3, please see details in pages 8-9
8) I suggest adding in the maps reported in Figure 3,4,5 and Figure 6 the right position of cities you mention in your analysis.
Answer: The cities mentioned have been added in the four figures, please see details in pages 11-12, 14-15.
9) At page 9, finally, I can find the variables used for the study. I think that this table, complemented with a more precise definition of the measures associated to each of variables, has to be moved in the methodological section.
Answer: The description of variables has been moved in the methodological section, please see details in pages 8-9.
10) in the conclusions, at rows 472-473 you say that the dimension of the SKN is smaller than of that of TKN. Is it right?
Answer: This sentence has been revised, please see details in page 20.
11) Finally, limitations of the research and further developments are not mentioned in this study.
Answer: The limitation and further developments have been added in the “conclusion and implication” section, please see the details in page 21.
Reviewer 3 Report
The logical construction in the introduction is arbitrary and, in my
opinion, risky.
I do not believe that, as you say, regional innovation and sustainable
development can be based on the spatial agglomeration of R&D and
high-tech companies.
Or, in any case, all this could be true if a solid context analysis were
to demand it.
The issue is complicated by the addition of the urban scale.
In the end, it is not clear what idea of development and sustainable
development we want to hope for.
The link between theory and method is also weak.
I would suggest that you review the theoretical construction. To select
fewer references and to update the bibliography.
Author Response
1) The logical construction in the introduction is arbitrary and, in my opinion, risky.
Answer: The construction in the introduction is reorganized, please see details in pages 1-2.
2) I do not believe that, as you say, regional innovation and sustainable development can be based on the spatial agglomeration of R&D and high-tech companies. Or, in any case, all this could be true if a solid context analysis were to demand it.
The issue is complicated by the addition of the urban scale.
Answer: The literature has confirmed the spatial agglomeration of innovative resources and its positive relationship with innovation output. Of course, it is undeniable that when resources are over-aggregated, it will also bring diseconomies of agglomeration. Please see details in page 4. Moreover, our model results confirm the existence of these two conditions, for example, in the initial stage, variable has a positive effect on output, but at a later stage, the effect is not obvious, please see details in pages 16-17. Besides, the reasons why we choose urban innovation network have been added, please see details in page 6.
3) In the end, it is not clear what idea of development and sustainable development we want to hope for.
Answer: The relationships between innovation and sustainable development have been added, please see details in page 1.
4) The link between theory and method is also weak. I would suggest that you review the theoretical construction.
Answer: We have re-constructed the theoretical framework, please see details in pages 4-5.
5) To select fewer references and to update the bibliography.
Answer: We have replaced and deleted some old references with the updated bibliography, please see details in pages 3-5, 21-23.
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper is interesting and quite well-written. Notwithstanding, some improvements are necessary before publishing.
Literature review should be improved. I would like to suggest to the authors to focus mainly on Regional Innovation System (RIS) and on the importance/role of the variables considered in supporting innovation processes (e.g. acquisition and control capabilities, innovation climate, resources and so on). Moreover, the authors should better analyze the link between RIS, or in general innovation, and the sustainable development. Finally, the authors should better define the research gaps in literature.
With the regard to the Methodology, the authors should better explain why the time period considered is from 2000-2012...we are in 2019. Could you update the database? It could make your results more interesting.
Focusing on the results, I would like to suggest to introduce a table to sum up the main findings deriving from the regression analysis. The authors should say the type of regression model adopted (linear?!). The authors claim that they aim to analyze the relationship between networked capability and sustainable development...how is the sustainable development measured? Is the innovation output a measure of sustainable development? Are the authors focused on the "green innovation" (maybe)? Based on this consideration, I think that some highlights are not correct. In particular, the first highlight claims that the economic development affects the networked capacities... in the explanation the authors claim the contrary. Check it, please. Second, the phase characteristics of the network effect....what does "phase characteristics" mean? Please, verify also the fourth and the fifth highlight.
Finally, I would like to suggest to the authors to discuss main limitations of the paper (e.g. context specific, not generalizability, etc...)
Some typos and grammar errors exist, please amend them.
Best regards
Author Response
1) Literature review should be improved. I would like to suggest to the authors to focus mainly on Regional Innovation System (RIS) and on the importance/role of the variables considered in supporting innovation processes (e.g. acquisition and control capabilities, innovation climate, resources and so on). Moreover, the authors should better analyze the link between RIS, or in general innovation, and the sustainable development. Finally, the authors should better define the research gaps in literature.
Answer: The literature review of RIS has been add in the sub-section 2.1, please see details in page 3. And the research gaps have been added in page 4.
2) With the regard to the Methodology, the authors should better explain why the time period considered is from 2000-2012...we are in 2019. Could you update the database? It could make your results more interesting.
Answer: It is one of the limitations of this paper. Since the research object of this paper is the biotechnology industry, its innovation output, resources, climate and other data cannot be directly obtained from the statistical yearbooks of each city. That’s why the data of Chinese industrial enterprises database is taken. However, the official data is updated to year 2012 when the paper is constructed, this’s why the time period considered is from 2000-2012. As of now, the latest data is 2014 for Chinese industrial enterprises database. If we can get the latest data, it will be more accurately analyze the interaction between networked capabilities and innovation output. Please see details in page 21.
3) Focusing on the results, I would like to suggest introducing a table to sum up the main findings deriving from the regression analysis. The authors should say the type of regression model adopted (linear?!).
Answer: The model regression results are reorganized in tables 3, 4 and 5. However, the contribution and implication of variables at different time period cannot be fully represented by a table. Therefore, although this article still retains the original five highlights, we reorganize the highlights to make the regression results more prominent. Please see details in pages 18-19. The spatial regime model adds the spatial heterogeneity weight into the linear regression, please see details in page 8.
4) The authors claim that they aim to analyze the relationship between networked capability and sustainable development...how is the sustainable development measured? Is the innovation output a measure of sustainable development? Are the authors focused on the "green innovation" (maybe)?
Answer: The focus of this paper is on the relationships between networked capabilities and innovation output, innovation output is not considered as quantitative sustainable development or green innovation. In this paper, innovation is considered an important means of achieving sustainable development, the relationships between innovation and sustainable development can be seen details in pages 1, 3-4.
5) Based on this consideration, I think that some highlights are not correct. In particular, the first highlight claims that the economic development affects the networked capacities... in the explanation the authors claim the contrary. Check it, please.
Answer: The description has been verified, please see details in pages 16-17.
6) Second, what does "phase characteristics" mean? Please, verify also the fourth and the fifth highlight.
Answer: the expression of “phase characteristics” has been deleted, please see details in page 16. The fourth and fifth highlight have been verified, please see details in page 17.
7) Finally, I would like to suggest to the authors to discuss main limitations of the paper (e.g. context specific, not generalizability, etc...)
Answer: The limitation and further developments have been added, please see the details in page 21.
8) Some typos and grammar errors exist, please amend them.
Answer: English has been revision by authors and professionals. Please see details in pages 1, 2, 5, 8, 16, 17, 20.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
the writing is very dense and the threads of arguments are not fully spelt out.Reviewer 3 Report
Dear editors and authors, unfortunately the current version is not changed. The previous comments have not been included (perhaps not understood).
For example, about my comment on your idea about sustainability, your responses have been very didactic (or passive). Moreover, not explained in the cover letter. How possible could be the alternation ‘sustainable development-innovation’? There are so many typologies of innovation, that you cannot maintain the abstract conceptualization of ‘innovation’.
Thus, your consequential statement: “Furthermore, the driving force of economic development has been shifting from traditional factors and investment to innovation [1]”, remain for me incomprehensible because 1) unjustified and 2) supported by an incorrect reference (what does Porter have to do with sustainable development?).
