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Article
Peer-Review Record

The Relationship between Innovation and Sustainability: A Bibliometric Review of the Literature

Sustainability 2020, 12(10), 4083; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104083
by Dorin Maier *, Andreea Maier, Ioan Așchilean, Livia Anastasiu and Ovidiu Gavriș
Reviewer 1: Anonymous
Reviewer 2: Anonymous
Reviewer 3: Anonymous
Sustainability 2020, 12(10), 4083; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104083
Submission received: 6 April 2020 / Revised: 12 May 2020 / Accepted: 15 May 2020 / Published: 16 May 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Business Innovation and Sustainable Development)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, thank you for the opportunity to read your research. I have a few points. I believe that if you implement them, the value of your paper will substantially improve. 

technical issues, including language: 

-- please, do a thorough spellcheck: submitting a paper, where every second sentence lacks a verb or has a typo is unprofessional, e.g. Consider just the abstract: "The current economic environment is characterize by a fierce global competition and rapid changes in the market. Innovation considered as a solution for organizations to respond and adapt to the new challenges and requirements. In the same time the environmental issues and natural
resource limitations have become more and more important to the society and thus more researchers are looking at topics from a sustainability perspective

quality of argument:

--'Starting from 2000’s innovation became a very important tool to fight with the challenges of globalizations and new requirements of clients and market

only from 2000s? how many 'globalizations' exist? how can you back it?

-- the literature review: the lit review is very patchy; I am not quite sure what is it that you are looking for in it? is it the justification of your research method? the relevance of the connection between innovation and sustainability? what for after all?  -- you really have to rethink it;

research design and methodology:

bibliometric analysis can be a powerful tool of research if we only know what we are looking for; I see a disconnect between the presentation of your results and the discussion before; -- my suggestion is to rethink that discussion to adjust it to the analysis; 

to this end, I would like to suggest a variety of papers that do just that, please, consider the following:

 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929X.2018.1467967?journalCode=tbit20

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929X.2019.1583282?journalCode=tbit20

 

Author Response

I would like to thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions regarding the submitted paper and allow me to send you the following clarifications regarding your observations / weaknesses reported by you in the review report.

Point 1: please, do a thorough spellcheck: submitting a paper, where every second sentence lacks a verb or has a typo is unprofessional, e.g. Consider just the abstract: "The current economic environment is characterize by a fierce global competition and rapid changes in the market. Innovation considered as a solution for organizations to respond and adapt to the new challenges and requirements. In the same time the environmental issues and natural
resource limitations have become more and more important to the society and thus more researchers are looking at topics from a sustainability perspective

Thank you for this observation and we apologize for these issues, I think that we focused too much on finish the paper and we had a lack of attention regarding the spellcheck. We proofread again the manuscript and fix the language issues.

Quality of argument:

Point 2. 'Starting from 2000’s innovation became a very important tool to fight with the challenges of globalizations and new requirements of clients and market only from 2000s? How many 'globalizations' exist? How can you back it?

It is clear that not only from 2000`s innovation become important and there is only one globalization, we correct these in the paper and we add extra information to better explain our affirmations.

Point 3. the literature review: the lit review is very patchy; I am not quite sure what is it that you are looking for in it? is it the justification of your research method? the relevance of the connection between innovation and sustainability? what for after all?  -- you really have to rethink it;

We rethink the literature review section and we add some extra information to better explain the purpose of this section in the paper.

Research design and methodology:

Point 4. bibliometric analysis can be a powerful tool of research if we only know what we are looking for; I see a disconnect between the presentation of your results and the discussion before; -- my suggestion is to rethink that discussion to adjust it to the analysis; To this end, I would like to suggest a variety of papers that do just that, please, consider the following:

Thank you very much for your recommendations they were very helpful in rethinking the conclusion part. We rethought the conclusions section thus, it better reflects the research results.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper addresses a bibliometric analysis, which, in my opinion, is an interesting theme regarding the journal’s scope. Therefore, I congratulate the authors for the scientific effort they put in this study. However, I have some minor concerns which are depicted below:

 

  1. The abstract is should depict the study’ s main results and contributions.
  2. In the introduction section, the authors should be more clear about the general purpose of the study. Specifically, the authors write “innovation and sustainability field”. However, in my opinion there is not such field. There is research about innovation, research about sustainability, and research regarding the interrelationship between innovation and sustainability, which the authors mention in section 2. Therefore, I think that the authors should better clarify what the study is about. Is it about sustainable innovation?
  3. Although the sustainability definition is given in the beginning in section 2, in my opinion, the authors could transcribe it, then cite the authors and the page from where it was transcribed.
  4. The authors should better describe what they mean by “intellectual structure in the studied field”
  5. In the abstract the authors write that they limited the research to articles published in the last ten 19 years, from 2010 to 2019 inclusively. However, in the “data collection” section, the authors start presenting table 1, which is not the final version. I suggest that the authors present the same table, but for the 10 years’ period.
  6. The authors should be precise and write what was the final date they considered for the data collection (they only mention 2019). Also, see figure 1: the number of papers identified in the ISI database is the same considered as eligible (652). I think that there is some problem with the numbers. Attention to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Only in the results’ section the authors mention that they limited the research to the areas of business, management and economics. This detail should have been mentioned in the data collection section.
  7. Figure 2 shows an evolution ranging from 1975 to 2019. However, the data collection does not refer to the “older” periods. Only to a 10-year period. The authors should link these results to the data collection section.
  8. in line 299 the authors write “By applying these filters the data from figure 3 indicate a big decrease in the absolute number of published articles”. Decrease or increase?
  9. In section 4.1 the authors could have included a final figure encompassing the 10-year period, since that is the focus of the study.
  10. In my opinion, in the concluding section, the authors should repeat the research questions, namely to make a better link to the results they found. This fact can also allow a better discussion.

Author Response

I would like to thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions regarding the submitted paper and allow me to send you the following clarifications regarding your observations / weaknesses reported by you in the review report.

Point 1. The abstract is should depict the study’ s main results and contributions.

We have rewritten the abstract in order to point out the main finding of our study.

Point 2. In the introduction section, the authors should be more clear about the general purpose of the study. Specifically, the authors write “innovation and sustainability field”. However, in my opinion there is not such field. There is research about innovation, research about sustainability, and research regarding the interrelationship between innovation and sustainability, which the authors mention in section 2. Therefore, I think that the authors should better clarify what the study is about. Is it about sustainable innovation?

Thank you for this observation, is clear that there is not a field of study “innovation and sustainability”, we correct this in the paper and we rethink and rewrite the entire introduction to better clarify our study.  

Point 3. Although the sustainability definition is given in the beginning in section 2, in my opinion, the authors could transcribe it, then cite the authors and the page from where it was transcribed.

We correct this aspect in the paper.

Point 4. The authors should better describe what they mean by “intellectual structure in the studied field”

By using this expression we refer to the cited works and authors in the field. We add extra information in the paper to better explain what we understand by “intellectual structure”.

Point 5. In the abstract the authors write that they limited the research to articles published in the last ten years, from 2010 to 2019 inclusively. However, in the “data collection” section, the authors start presenting table 1, which is not the final version. I suggest that the authors present the same table, but for the 10 years’ period.

The initial search was on a five year period and then we expand the research for a ten year period, but we agree with your observation, some confusion may appear, and we modify the data for a ten year period.

Pont 6. The authors should be precise and write what was the final date they considered for the data collection (they only mention 2019). Also, see figure 1: the number of papers identified in the ISI database is the same considered as eligible (652). I think that there is some problem with the numbers. Attention to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Only in the results’ section the authors mention that they limited the research to the areas of business, management and economics. This detail should have been mentioned in the data collection section.

Thank you very much for this observation we rechecked the information from figure 1 and we correct this aspects. We added also the information also in the collection section.

Point 7. Figure 2 shows an evolution ranging from 1975 to 2019. However, the data collection does not refer to the “older” periods. Only to a 10-year period. The authors should link these results to the data collection section.

This data were intended just to point out the general context of our research. We construct the data selection part only for the main body of the research, but we add the information regarding this data in the data collection section also.

Point 8. in line 299 the authors write “By applying these filters the data from figure 3 indicate a big decrease in the absolute number of published articles”. Decrease or increase?

We written the presentation of the figure 3 and we eliminate the sections that we consider it unnecessary.

Point 9. In section 4.1 the authors could have included a final figure encompassing the 10-year period, since that is the focus of the study.

We correct this aspect throughout the entire paper, including in this part. We correct the text in order to have a certain coherence and we refer throughout the text at the ten year period.

Point 10. In my opinion, in the concluding section, the authors should repeat the research questions, namely to make a better link to the results they found. This fact can also allow a better discussion.

We rethought and rewrite the conclusion section of the paper and we take into consideration your valuable recommendations.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper transmits  quite a huge work made  by the authors. I think that a good article could be produced with most of the ingredients shown in this version.

Being said that, I don´t think it can be published like this. From the formal point of view, there are a lot of typos, wrong verb forms, syntax errors: the article must be written in proper english.

From the point of view of the content,  I hereby offer some comments and recomendations to the authors:

Introduction:

Innovation demands novelty, but all the novelties are not innovations. Last edition of Oslo Manual 2018 can be checked on this subject. In fact, if something new does not add value, it is new but it can not be considered as an innovation.

Innovation is about implementation (correct execution), one can fail in the process of implementing the innovation, but the achievement (or the absence of it) is hard to be called “innovation”.

My suggestion is to rewrite the general purpose of the  research according to the 4 questions that are posed in the introduction.  I strongly advise that the purpose and the research questions, although introduced here, should be developed in their own chapter.

It is not the same to analyze papers that discussed innovation and sustainability together or to analyze the concept of sustainable innovation.

 

Chapter 2:

I suggest  to simplify this chapter (e.g.:  there are several repetitions of the definition of sustainability in the beginning of the section and in line 88 and 98,…) and to justify all the assertions with relevant citations.

In the same way, the discussions about sustainable development, sustainable innovation; sustainability driven innovation, … should be clarified: which concepts and what for.

The chapter should be intended to clarify the descriptors, indicators, measures that are to be used to answer properly  the research questions.

 

Chapter 3:

Description of the methodology demands its own section.

Data collection is not clear:

  • keywords are referred to the abstracts of the articles? Are they the descriptors that will be searched in the repositories of articles (Web of science and Scopus)?;
  • if section 2 was intended to justify the categories and the words that are  key in the search, all of them should be properly justified;
  • as results are displayed in two big groups: Innovation and Sustainability, it is needed to clarify how the grouping of descriptors has been done (in this section or in chapter 2);
  • if it is supposed that the researchers wanted to find the “common points”  between innovation and sustainability, should not both words appear together in the title?;
  • in the beginning, it seems that the authors perform a general approach/search of the articles and afterwards, when they come to explain PRISMA approach, they become more specific/narrow getting a “final database”. Taking into account the way in which results are displayed: is there only one final database or two databases?;
  • the authors first prefer a 5 year period to conclude that they have to limit the search to the titles and, then, they consider they have to lengthen the period of search to 10 years in order to get a proper amount of articles; why not chose this final approach from the beginning?.

Data Extraction:

  • VOS Viewer software demands a more thorough description (rationale, way of working and purpose) in this section. Why this tool and not the previously mentioned ones? How can this election be academically justified?

 

Chapter 4:

Published articles:

  • which are the words used to get those quantities of articles?; maybe, each of those words should be plotted in different/specific chart?
  • figures addressed in the charts do not match with those shown in table 1;
  • conclusions should be addressed in their own chapter/section.

 

Journals:

  • the words that are used to count the number of articles in each Journal should be formally addressed; only “sustainable innovation”?.

 

Influential authors:

  • it is curious that non of the most influential authors become the node of any of the clusters; this could be a subject for the discussion.

 

Topical focus:

  • where does the co-occurrence happen? In the title, in the abstract or in the whole text of the article?.

 

Chapter 5:

Although in the abstract and in the Data Collection section Scopus databased is cited, there is no reference to it in the discussion and conclusion chapter.

I recommend to structure this chapter in a section of conclusions, a section of discussion (implications for the Journals, for the authors that want to become more influential among the research community, and for the researchers in general), a section about further research to end with the limitations.

Interpretation:

  • there are some results that are neither supported by the research nor  by any citation;
  • most of the text refers to results that have been provided in a previous chapter, but very few conclusions are drawn out of them.

Future research:

  • deeper proposals are demanded in this kind of section.

 

Author Response

Response to reviewer 3
We would like to thank you very much for your feedback and suggestions regarding the submitted paper and allow me to send you the following clarifications regarding your observations / weaknesses reported by you in the review report.
Point 1. The paper transmits quite a huge work made by the authors. I think that a good article could be produced with most of the ingredients shown in this version. Being said that, I don´t think it can be published like this. From the formal point of view, there are a lot of typos, wrong verb forms, syntax errors: the article must be written in proper English.
This was also point out by the other two reviewer we apologize for the initial form of the paper we worked a lot on the content of the paper and unfortunately we were a little more careless on the spelling part. Now we rechecked the entire paper and we correct the English spelling problems.
Point 2. Innovation demands novelty, but all the novelties are not innovations. Last edition of Oslo Manual 2018 can be checked on this subject. In fact, if something new does not add value, it is new but it cannot be considered as an innovation. Innovation is about implementation (correct execution), one can fail in the process of implementing the innovation, but the achievement (or the absence of it) is hard to be called “innovation”. My suggestion is to rewrite the general purpose of the research according to the 4 questions that are posed in the introduction. I strongly advise that the purpose and the research questions, although introduced here, should be developed in their own chapter. It is not the same to analyze papers that discussed innovation and sustainability together or to analyze the concept of sustainable innovation.
Yes you are right innovation is not only about generating novelty it is also about bringing added value. In this context we just wanted to highlight that when we are dealing with innovation we need to be prepared to accept novelty and in general the evolution of the society is related to novelty. We understand that it may generate some confusions and we added extra information. Also we rewrite the introduction part to explain better the purpose of this study.
Point 3. I suggest to simplify this chapter (e.g.: there are several repetitions of the definition of sustainability in the beginning of the section and in line 88 and 98…) and to justify all the assertions with relevant citations. In the same way, the discussions about sustainable development, sustainable innovate on; sustainability driven innovation, should be clarified: which concepts and what for. The chapter should be intended to clarify the descriptors, indicators, measures that are to be used to answer properly the research questions.
We rethought this part of literature review and we eliminate some part of it as to better fit the purpose of this research.
Point 4. Description of the methodology demands its own section. Data collection is not clear:
keywords are referred to the abstracts of the articles? Are they the descriptors that will be
searched in the repositories of articles (Web of science and Scopus)?;
The keywords are used as the search criteria to interrogate the database and the initial option
given by the ISI WoS database was set to search in topics and then we use the filters to narrow
the search. We add this explication in the text at the data collection part.
if section 2 was intended to justify the categories and the words that are key in the search,
all of them should be properly justified;
We tried to better justify them in the section of the paper.
as results are displayed in two big groups: Innovation and Sustainability, it is needed to
clarify how the grouping of descriptors has been done (in this section or in chapter 2);
We added information to better explain the grouping part in the data collection section of the
paper.
if it is supposed that the researchers wanted to find the “common points” between
innovation and sustainability, should not both words appear together in the title?;
Yes, we performed also a search used the two words in the title and also by using the concept of
“sustainable innovation” as a combined concept. We modify the text to better explain the use of
search criteria.
in the beginning, it seems that the authors perform a general approach/search of the
articles and afterwards, when they come to explain PRISMA approach, they become more
specific/narrow getting a “final database”. Taking into account the way in which results
are displayed: is there only one final database or two databases?;
The initial search was done just by interrogating the ISI database using search criteria, in this
phase we did not create a database, we just present the total number of articles resulted from
interrogating the database this was done just to give a certain context of the research. Because
the volume of articles was too big we wanted to perform a more specific search and we used the
PRISMA approach and after this search we formed the database that we effectively used in our
bibliometric review. We tried to better explain this in the text so there will not be any confusions.
the authors first prefer a 5 year period to conclude that they have to limit the search to the
titles and, then, they consider they have to lengthen the period of search to 10 years in
order to get a proper amount of articles; why not chose this final approach from the
beginning?.
Our initial approach was to limit the research to a period of only five years, but after we analyses
the initial results of the study we saw that this is not helpful for our study and we decide to extent
the research to a ten year period from 2010 to 2019. We agree that this can create a confusion
from the readers point of view and we decide to eliminate this thinking step in developing the
research and we uniformly modified the entire paper to be fitted to a ten years period.
Point 5. Data Extraction:
VOS Viewer software demands a more thorough description (rationale, way of working
and purpose) in this section. Why this tool and not the previously mentioned ones? How
can this election be academically justified?
We added some extra information to better justify the use of VOS Viewer in our research.
Point 6. Published articles:
which are the words used to get those quantities of articles?; maybe, each of those words
should be plotted in different/specific chart?
We better explain tin text how we enerate the graphs and what words do we use in this sense.
figures addressed in the charts do not match with those shown in table 1;
We rechecked the data presented in table and in figures and we update to the latest data used in
the research.
conclusions should be addressed in their own chapter/section.
We modify this part so as to better present the conclusions of the research in its own pat of the
paper.
Point 7. Journals:
the words that are used to count the number of articles in each Journal should be formally
addressed; only “sustainable innovation”?.
We better explain in the text how we analyses the journals in our database.
Point 8. Influential authors:
it is curious that non of the most influential authors become the node of any of the clusters;
this could be a subject for the discussion.
Thank you for this observations we tried to approach this subject in the discussion part of the
paper.
Point 9. Topical focus:
where does the co-occurrence happen? In the title, in the abstract or in the whole text of
the article?.
The co-occurrence happens in the list of keywords used by the authors. We tried to better explain
this in the text.
Point 10. Chapter 5: Although in the abstract and in the Data Collection section Scopus
databased is cited, there is no reference to it in the discussion and conclusion chapter.
The Scopus database was used and explain in the data collection part, as a secondary database
used, but the entire research is more focused on the ISI WoS of science database and that is way
we did not make any reference to the Scopus database. We added this explication in the text to
better explain our research.
Point 11. I recommend to structure this chapter in a section of conclusions, a section of
discussion (implications for the Journals, for the authors that want to become more
influential among the research community, and for the researchers in general), a section
about further research to end with the limitations. there are some results that are neither
supported by the research nor by any citation; most of the text refers to results that have
been provided in a previous chapter, but very few conclusions are drawn out of them.
Future research: deeper proposals are demanded in this kind of section.
We rethought the entire pat of the discussion and conclusion part and being a week point
highlighted by al reviewers. We hope that in its current form it better captures the main aspects
pursued by this research and highlights better the research results.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, thank you for the effort to address my queries. The paper is in a much better shape now, however, there is still some work that needs to be done to make it a publishable work.

English/style/editing: 

even if the quality of the writing improved, the paper still needs some polishing to allow you to convey your message clearly; 

as for the style: please, read the paper carefully, and make sure that each sentence that you wrote is clear to you; if it is, it will be clear to the reader too; please, do not get me wrong, it will work to your advantage;

as a result, repetitions will be avoided, fuzzy lines of text will be deleted, and the paper will be shortened;

Technical issues:

please, check Figure 3: isn't it a duplication?

other issues have been brought up by other reviewers;  

Author Response

Please find in the attached PDF our response to your valuable observations. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have made a clear effort to write the paper in a better English. Still, there are quite a bunch of mistakes, many commas are missing, and, maybe because of some problems with the pdf version, new words (and diagrams) appear together with the old ones, capital letters appear together with small letter,… Redaction should be improved.

From the perspective of the content:

Introduction

Innovation demands novelty, but all the novelties are not innovations. Renovation also implies novelty, but renovations are not innovations  (necessarily). Last edition of Oslo Manual 2018 can be checked on this subject. In fact, if something new does not add value, it is new but it can not be considered as an innovation. Authors should find a good citation for the concept of innovation

The research purpose and the research questions demand a specific chapter in the paper. Although the general purpose focuses on common points, in the results it is difficult to conclude any communality between the studied concepts. Same comment about methodology

Chapter 2:

On the one hand, I suggest to simplify the way in which the approach to innovation and sustainability is done: two or three “relevant academic definitions” of the concepts is enough.

On the other hand, this chapter must be devoted to describe the descriptors/words/tags that are going to be used to select the papers and to draw the conclusions; that is to say,  which are the indicators for innovation, and for sustainability in the papers? And why? Maybe these are the “topics” included in Table 1, but they should be explained in this chapter.

Chapter 3

Description of the methodology demands its own section.

Data collection

  • If authors decide not to explain the descriptors/words/tags in the previous chapter, they should explain them in the data collection section. How these descriptors would help the authors to find the communalities between both domains?
  • Initial search must be explained: what descriptors and in which part of the paper: title, abstract, body,…in all of them.
  • I don´t see the point of going broad, then narrow, and the broad again: I think that is enough to say that the authors want to analyze the papers with some “descriptor/s” in the title of papers selected from (WOS) and Scopus.

Data extraction

  • VOS Viewer software demands a more thorough description (rationale, way of working and purpose) in this section. Why this tool and not the previously mentioned ones? How can this election be academically justified?

 

Chapter 4:

As  a general comment; this is a chapter for results;  conclusions should be addressed in their own chapter.

Published articles:

  • Graphs appear duplicated, so…

Journals:

  • The descriptors/words/tags  that are used to count the number of articles in each Journal should be formally addressed; only “sustainable innovation”?.

 Influential authors:

  • All the listed titles do not contain “sustainable innovation” in them. So, these are the articles that are being cited … by whom/in which journals.?
  • It is curious that non of the most influential authors become the node of any of the clusters; this could be a subject for the discussion.

 Topical focus:

  • Where does the co-occurrence happen? In the title, in the abstract or in the whole text of the article?.

And what about the results about the “common points” mentioned in the general purpose?

Chapter 5:

Although in the abstract and in the Data Collection section Scopus databased is cited, there is no reference to it in the discussion and conclusion chapter.

I recommend to structure this chapter in a section of conclusions, a section of discussion (implications for the Journals, for the authors that want to become more influential among the research community, and for the researchers in general), a section about further research to end with the limitations.

Interpretation:

  • There are some results that are neither supported by the research nor  by any citation;
  • Most of the text refers to results that have been provided in a previous chapter, but very few conclusions are drawn out of them.

Future research:

  • Deeper proposals are demanded in this kind of section.

Author Response

Please find in the attached PDF our response to your valuable observations. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have done a great work both from the point of view of redaction and from the point of view of coherence. They have improved it without any doubt. Nevertheless, I have  several recommendations   for the final version.

SOME SUGGESTIONS AND COMMENTS ABOUT CONTENT

Introduction

Analysing this third version, I recommend the authors to devote the introduction to justify that Innovation and Sustainability have gained favour amongst the academical community and not to justify what is the role of Innovation or Sustainability, or the difficulties that the managers  have to implement them in their organizations. This is what authors try to do in their section 2 (Short conceptual Background of the Review), and this should be what they introduce in this first section.

Being said the former, I strongly advice the authors to place the citation of their own papers in a more suitable place in the article as: Citation 1, 2 and 3 are citations of a different papers written by some of the authors, but with a very distinct purpose of the conclusions that they draw in this section. The content and the citations of section 2 prove this, and authors can enter in contradiction: in the introduction they state that innovation not always add value while in section 2 they define (eco) innovation  adding value (Line 130 and 131; lines 138 to 142). I think that from an ethical, and an academical point of view authors should find another one. It is too obvious for the readers (I noticed this same aspect in my first review in a smoother way).

Coming back to this section, I recommended   the authors to separate the purpose of the research from the introduction creating another section in my previous reviews. The purpose and objectives of the research are too important to be embedded in the introduction. Authors can introduce the purpose in this preliminary section, but they can subsumed the whole section in the introduction.

 

Methods and materials

Data Collection

In line 175, taking into account the effort made by the authors, I suggest that they define what “more” means according what its is being stated in the interrogation process (lines 227 to 229).

 

SOME SUGGESTIONS AND COMMENTS ABOUT REDACTION

General comment: title of graphics and tables must be placed on top of them or below them, but  authors should not do in a different way in each case.

Line 34: Verb following the subject does not need a comma. This new requirement led…

Line 86: Typo: theirs connections

Line 107: Typo: is debated

Line 127: Typo: seems

Line 137: “when there is not…” instead of that

Line 148: Typo: the analysis of the citations

Line 152: Authors may consider to remove “the first reason” as they do not mention the second and the third; and, before the verb, “is”, the subject, “it” should be placed as they do in (iii).

Line 194: Typo:  “,innovation environmental”

Line 211: Commas needed: Then, from…, we

Line 214: Suggested redaction: “Much of the articles were removed because…”

Line 233: Comma needed: In this sense,

Line 237: Comma not needed: “…conducted in the…”

Line 246: Comma not needed: “..[16] explain…”

Line 326:  Suggested redaction: The biggest cluster, formed by 56 items, it is the red cluster, and from this cluster, a  number of journals stand out.

Line 327: Revision needed:  This cluster has a tight group of journals as importance.

Line 344: Comma needed: “…of items, in this…”

Line 361: Semicolon  and full stop needed: The number of citations is received from the interrogation of the ISI WoS   database; this reflects citations to source items indexed within Web of Science Core Collection.

Line 373: Typo: “..[27], with…”

Line 373: Revision needed: “the authors a business model”

Line 386: Comma advised: “…one, …”

Line 412: Typo: “The rational …”

Line 429: Comma needed after “… the same, the…”

Line 433: Typo: “c” missing: cluster

Line 441: Suggested redaction: “An in the last cluster, the yellow one, the keywords that stand out are…”

Line 441 to line 443: I suggest to describe the results as in previous paragraphs: “…, the total link strength is…”

Line 473: Comma needed: “…evolution,..”

Line 476: Suggested redaction: “Regarding to absolute values, …”

Line 496 and 497: Revision needed: same suggestion than the one offered for Line 361?

Line 498: Typo: plural needed: “..fields

Line 500: Comma needed: “..end,…”

Line 518: Full stop needed at the end of the sentence.

Line 576: Comma needed: “…context, …”

Line 592: Revision needed: “…of not been included..?

Line 594: Comma needed: “…end,…”.

Author Response

Please find in the attached file the response to yur valuable observatios 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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