Glancing through Two Decades of Research on the Human Side of Sustainable Innovation: The Past, the Present, and Directions for Future Research

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Aim of the research

The current manuscript aims ‘to explore the nature of research on the “human side” with respect to “sustainable innovation”’. It also serves as an introduction to the special issue “The human side of sustainable Innovation”. The topic is actual and interesting, and it matches well with the journal’s focus.

Methodology

The authors report an explorative bibliometric analysis of data that comprises more than 3000 articles from six top journals over the period of twenty years. The chosen methodology fits well with the aims of the research and the body of literature analyzed is sufficiently extensive both in terms of number of articles and their temporal span. I would appreciate, though, if the authors more carefully explained, how they have uncovered the “three main clusters of variables” (p. 5).

Results

The main outcome of the paper is the demonstration of inconsistency in how sustainable innovation is conceptualized: ‘all research into “sustainable innovations” faces the problem of fuzziness in multiple respects. Since agreements on definitions, conceptualizations and operationalizations are entirely missing, the research suffers from an inconsistency of results and only little can be compared’. They also note similar inconsistency in how “sustainability” is conceptualized: “What balance between social, ecological/environmental and economic goals characterize “sustainable innovations”?” The results are interesting and advance the academic discourse on sustainable innovation.

Language

Language is the manuscript’s Achilles’ heel: It is evident that the manuscript has been written in a hurry as it still contains many sentences that are difficult to parse, such as the following: ‘The issues of the journals were searched for articles investigating/referring to themes touching the theme “The human side of sustainable innovation”’  (p. 3). it also contains numerous misspellings, such as “recherche” (p. 1), “elf-efficacy” (p. 5), “costumer” (p. 5). A thorough language check is needed.

Author Response

Dear Ewelina Mocior, dear reviewers,

many thank`s for your fast and precise reviews, which have given to us valuable suggestions, comments and addressed critical points. Based on these reviews we think that we could significantly improve the manuscript “Glancing through two decades in research on the human side of sustainable innovation: the past, the present and directions for future research”. The next section will sequentially address the changes we made point-by-point from reviewer 1 to reviewer 3. The changes are indicated in the text in yellow.

The first comment refers to … a more carefully explanation of the three main clusters of variables as discussed in section 3 (reviewer 1).

We extended the explanations given on page 4 and 5. In fact, when considering the “human side” the smallest element is the human, followed by human-to-human interaction as dyads, triads and larger constellations up to societies. And all individual or interactive human behaviour is affected by norms, values, laws, institutions, managed or manipulated. Individual or social human behaviour never takes place in a vacuum. 

The second comment from reviewer 1 and 3 refer to a thorough language check and correction of sentences, words etc..

Indeed, the entire text needed to be checked, corrected and edited. For doing so, we have used a professional English language checking and editing agency. The current manuscript has gone through a significant English editing.

The third comment from reviewer 3 refers to the abstract, which needs to be improved as such and the objective of the paper must be made much clearer.

We significantly revised the abstract and state that the objective of our contribution is to provide a structured overview of this studies in the frame of the Special Issue “the human side of sustainable innovation”.

The fourth comment from reviewer 3 refers to section 2, which needs to be explained much more in detail.

We extended the explanation about the choice to select the six scientific journals and the four selection criteria as data source to exemplify the increase of contributions on “the human side of sustainable innovation” and the distribution of sub-themes over time as presented. The changes appear at different paragraphs.

And finally, the fifth comment from reviewer 3 suggests to adding literature to performance parameters and measuring performance.

We extended the section and made the point about future research and performance parameters and measuring performance stronger. In addition, we added two new references into this paragraph.

Thanks again, best regards,

Jan Kratzer, Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufseß and Gunter Festel

Reviewer 2 Report

From an editorial point of view, this paper is of a publishable standard as it is. The main   well constructed and also all themes are relevant and quite clearly stated.

• The main issues are well constructed and also all themes are relevant and quite clearly stated.
• The paper is quite well-designed and it also uses adequate relevant information and data for the research and presentation of the particular subject.
• The approach and the methodology is quite interesting and all the data and the research have been used effectively, according to the main questions and themes of the paper.
• The paper uses the existing theoretical background and furthermore it tested with a methodology, in order to reach in some safety results.
• The main themes of the paper are quite interesting and suitable for the contents and within research orientation of the Journal.
• The section of conclusions of this paper is quite clear enough, including the main – bullet points contributing substantially towards the current theory and the evidence
• The structure of paper is adequate and the technical-standards of this paper are quite accepted for both readers, i.e. professional, students and academic persons.
  • From an editorial point of view, this paper is of a publishable standard as it is.

Author Response

Dear Ewelina Mocior, dear reviewers,

many thank`s for your fast and precise reviews, which have given to us valuable suggestions, comments and addressed critical points. Based on these reviews we think that we could significantly improve the manuscript “Glancing through two decades in research on the human side of sustainable innovation: the past, the present and directions for future research”. The next section will sequentially address the changes we made point-by-point from reviewer 1 to reviewer 3. The changes are indicated in the text in yellow.

The first comment refers to … a more carefully explanation of the three main clusters of variables as discussed in section 3 (reviewer 1).

We extended the explanations given on page 4 and 5. In fact, when considering the “human side” the smallest element is the human, followed by human-to-human interaction as dyads, triads and larger constellations up to societies. And all individual or interactive human behaviour is affected by norms, values, laws, institutions, managed or manipulated. Individual or social human behaviour never takes place in a vacuum. 

The second comment from reviewer 1 and 3 refer to a thorough language check and correction of sentences, words etc..

Indeed, the entire text needed to be checked, corrected and edited. For doing so, we have used a professional English language checking and editing agency. The current manuscript has gone through a significant English editing.

The third comment from reviewer 3 refers to the abstract, which needs to be improved as such and the objective of the paper must be made much clearer.

We significantly revised the abstract and state that the objective of our contribution is to provide a structured overview of this studies in the frame of the Special Issue “the human side of sustainable innovation”.

The fourth comment from reviewer 3 refers to section 2, which needs to be explained much more in detail.

We extended the explanation about the choice to select the six scientific journals and the four selection criteria as data source to exemplify the increase of contributions on “the human side of sustainable innovation” and the distribution of sub-themes over time as presented. The changes appear at different paragraphs.

And finally, the fifth comment from reviewer 3 suggests to adding literature to performance parameters and measuring performance.

We extended the section and made the point about future research and performance parameters and measuring performance stronger. In addition, we added two new references into this paragraph.

Thanks again, best regards,

Jan Kratzer, Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufseß and Gunter Festel

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper presents a global review on sustainability!  This paper aims to extract all prominent “terms” capturing the “human side” linked to “sustainable innovation”. This is a very good idea, but the general objective is not well explained, and it is difficult to the reader to understand the paper global logic. Maybe it would be a real improvement to focus attention on how to well describe the structure of the article.

In the abstract, the objective of the paper must be more described! It is difficult to know what will be presented as work in the paper! The abstract must be improved!

It seems that you have a mistake in line 12: recherche.

The sentence of line 66 has to be rewritten! It seems that one mistake is the sentence.

You have a space in line 92 between four and sources.

The analysis made in section 2 needs to more explained. I don’t understand exactly the objective of this section! For instance, in this second section, the choice of the four sources and the choice of the 6 journals have to be better explained.

The third section on typologies is the most interesting part of the paper! Thanks to the authors!

The section 5 presents directions of future research. This is well explained but some thematics already started to have responses such as performance parameters and measuring performance. Maybe it could be good to check some of articles in this thematic in the literature and to complete the last part.

This paper will be very good if the improvements suggested have been done. 

Author Response

Dear Ewelina Mocior, dear reviewers,

many thank`s for your fast and precise reviews, which have given to us valuable suggestions, comments and addressed critical points. Based on these reviews we think that we could significantly improve the manuscript “Glancing through two decades in research on the human side of sustainable innovation: the past, the present and directions for future research”. The next section will sequentially address the changes we made point-by-point from reviewer 1 to reviewer 3. The changes are indicated in the text in yellow.

The first comment refers to … a more carefully explanation of the three main clusters of variables as discussed in section 3 (reviewer 1).

We extended the explanations given on page 4 and 5. In fact, when considering the “human side” the smallest element is the human, followed by human-to-human interaction as dyads, triads and larger constellations up to societies. And all individual or interactive human behaviour is affected by norms, values, laws, institutions, managed or manipulated. Individual or social human behaviour never takes place in a vacuum. 

The second comment from reviewer 1 and 3 refer to a thorough language check and correction of sentences, words etc..

Indeed, the entire text needed to be checked, corrected and edited. For doing so, we have used a professional English language checking and editing agency. The current manuscript has gone through a significant English editing.

The third comment from reviewer 3 refers to the abstract, which needs to be improved as such and the objective of the paper must be made much clearer.

We significantly revised the abstract and state that the objective of our contribution is to provide a structured overview of this studies in the frame of the Special Issue “the human side of sustainable innovation”.

The fourth comment from reviewer 3 refers to section 2, which needs to be explained much more in detail.

We extended the explanation about the choice to select the six scientific journals and the four selection criteria as data source to exemplify the increase of contributions on “the human side of sustainable innovation” and the distribution of sub-themes over time as presented. The changes appear at different paragraphs.

And finally, the fifth comment from reviewer 3 suggests to adding literature to performance parameters and measuring performance.

We extended the section and made the point about future research and performance parameters and measuring performance stronger. In addition, we added two new references into this paragraph.

Thanks again, best regards,

Jan Kratzer, Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufseß and Gunter Festel