On the Convergence of Collaborative and Social Economy: A Quality Model for the Combined Effects
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for providing your manuscript for a another review. I was somewhat surprised that in the reviewer comments‘ document only selected aspects where chosen from my review. In general, I do appreciate the work to conduct interviews with researchers and practitioners.
If I take a superficially view over the paper and see the changes in red letters, there seems to be more or less no changes in the latest document. In my review from October 2020, I wrote „The question arises why another differentiation might be necessary.“. The authors say that „because this paper just proposes this concept, and because if this concept if not completely applied or divulgated maybe is so early to try to establish a comparation with the application of the other Quality Model (more generals)“. I do not agree. It is absolutely necessary to explain why (!) such a new model is required or at least beneficial compared to other ones. There is so much other work on service quality. Hence, why do we need another one? Why the given ones are not applicable to social collaborative companies? Simply saying future research might go into this – I am sorry – is not acceptable. This is paramount for the concept and the manuscript – why this quality concept is necessary? Further, I asked for examples of such firms. Is Airbnb a social collaborative company or not? What organizations are these?
I also stated „Please also see the research stream on „social enterprises“ and „alternative economy“, e.g., „Designed for Post-Growth: Alternative Economies Between Micro- and Macro-Impacts“ in Journal of Macromarketing).“ I found no information about this research stream in the new manuscript. I had several questions like „First, why only digital? What about the stationary offers? Second, Airbnb would say to be a SCC. Is then Airbnb such SCC and where would be the differentiation (more, in table 2 there seems to be a clarification „It is a private initiative created by a group of individuals or civil society organisations“. Thus, most of the sharing firms do not belong to SCC)?“ The authors nowhere refer to this in the reviewer comment and I also found nothing about this in the manuscript. Or I asked regarding the title „What „combined effects“ are the authors referring to?“ I still miss an overview of the literature on the collaborative economy. It is merely the same literature the authors refer to.
I also do not understand what the interviewees did. What does it mean that the interviewees „interpret the meaning and context to the findings from the literature review included in the formation of the quality model“. I also miss information about these experts. Who are they, where are they from, what do they do? What was the process of choosing them?
Minor issues
Typos are still given.
Author Response
Please, see our reply in the attach file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Very interesting and well writing paper. Good research question and the 5 views of academics/ practitioners a reasonable approach to exploring the phenomenon.
I believe the diagrams were useful.
References: "sustain." was used twice but also "sustainability" please be consistent.
Author Response
Thank you again for your comments and suggestions.
Reviewer 3 Report
The second edit and additional information has improved the paper. It is easier to read and understand with all of the new information.
Review comments were addressed to a satisfactory level.
Author Response
Thank you again for your comments and suggestions.
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
The article is interesting and the research has been presented in a clear and well-structured way.
However, I think that "social impact", as concept, should be more explained or included in the model or at least related to some of the dimensions of the model. The impact on the community is included in the definition of SCC and therefore it should be included in model or dimensions as well, in my opinion.
Author Response
Please see the attach file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I liked the ideas of proposing a definition for social collaborative companies. The second part - proposing a quality model is interesting, but I think falls short.
I really like the authors introduction and this statement on page 2:
One approach to the collaborative economy and the social economy is proposed in platform cooperativism (Scholz, 2017), but there are other collaborative companies that take the form of a social economy without being a cooperative. Perhaps then we can discover a new type of company? But how are these companies? Can a collaborative company be social? Can a collaborative company only be social if it is a cooperative? Can a social and collaborative company compete with other companies in a global market? What must workers/partners do in terms of governance to ensure long-term sustainability? How can this kind of company compete in a collaborative environment with quality products and services?
The idea of adding quality to the discussion is also good. But the conclusion of "management, operations, and continuous improvement" seems not connected. I didn't see any of these 3 clearly coming from the discussion. Management could be governance or organization. Operations was not clearly emanating from the discussion. Someone else could propose strategy. And continuous improvement does not pop out in my estimation either. It could easily be innovation or learning, continuous learning. Emphasizing management seems to take away from the notion that ideas come from all sorts of places. If things are collaborative then customers, employees, the public, competitors help shape goods and services offered.
I was not sure if it makes sense that continuous improvement is an outsider ring (1 of 3) and also inside the continuous improvement and 1/3 of that component. I did not mind the discussion but the figures showed some weakness in the logic.
Author Response
Please, see the attach file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for providing your manuscript for a review. The manuscripts aims to fulfill the following two goals: a) to define social collaborative and b) to propose a quality model for social collaborative companies. I do understand that the authors aim to find a new term for companies that are not cooperatives but have nonetheless social targets. However, cooperatives have specific characteristics to be called as cooperatives, e.g., organizational structure and tax relations.
On page 2, the authors provide a definition of social economy („economic activities of a society seeking economic democracy associated with social utility“). The question arise if it is an „economy“ or simply social companies working in the overall economy. I am aware that the task of this paper is not to discuss the term „economy“ at all. However, if the term „social economy“ is taken as a parallel one to collaborative economy or old capitalism (p. 2) then this must be considered from my perspective. So, thus – is it something separate? Please also see the research stream on „social enterprises“ and „alternative economy“, e.g., „Designed for Post-Growth: Alternative Economies Between Micro- and Macro-Impacts“ in Journal of Macromarketing).
The authors ask „Can a collaborative company be social“. This requires to define what is understood under the term of „social“. Further, the author ask if such firms can be competitive. It might be a point, but I would like to ask the other way around: why such social firms might be not competitive? Here, again the term of „social“ might be relevant. To provide you an example for goods. In Germany, there is a company saying to be social and selling simple water and other FMCG goods under the brand „share“ (every item that is sold helps to offer another item to a person in need). It seems to be that this firm is highly competitive because of the high sales prices for the FMCG (and ist related niche and small customer group being willing to believe in the concept).
Regarding the definition on p. 4 on SCC („A social collaborative company is a private organisation that is dedicated to promoting the exchange between people to sell or share products and/or services through a digital platform (website or app), for profit or not, whose explicit purpose with respect to its activity is to have a positive impact on the community.“ I have two points. First, why only digital? What about the stationary offers? Second, Airbnb would say to be a SCC. Is then Airbnb such SCC and where would be the differentiation (more, in table 2 there seems to be a clarification „It is a private initiative created by a group of individuals or civil society organisations“. Thus, most of the sharing firms do not belong to SCC)? On page 4, it is further stated that SCC have a global character. Does this mean that a social firm without internationalization is no SCC? In table 2, I do not understand what is meant with „It has a paid worker in the maximum salary possible.“. Regarding share of the owner, why it is 33% and not more or less? Where this number comes from?
Why a quality model? Why is this important for research? The authors ask early, if it is possible to have quality standards in SCC. Yes, why should they not have such standards? Could these measures of quality be different to the non-SCC companies? The question on the impact of the SCC platform on customer satisfaction is not a new one. There are several studies on the effect of non-profit SE or CE organisations on users/consumers. The authors then present different quality models and motivate a new one on page 10. It is not clear why these dimensions were chosen. And, what can we take from a sentence such as „Management is where it all begins“? I further do not understand why the subdimensions are presented. It reads like a suggestion for SCC. But what can we learn for research? Very often „must“ can be found in the respective sentences, but why firms must do things like the common profit and capitalistic companies? The list reads like a typical list from strategy books. What is new? Where the recommendation of the dimensions and their subdimensions come from?
Further, many terms pop up in the manuscript like „Co-creation“, „prosumer“. Such terms need definitions. It might be an idea to focus on some industries/areas of SCC only. Otherwise, it might be rather difficult to answer all of the questions that come up in the minds of the readers. There are so much „construction sites“ that the paper reads somewhat too challanging. Sentences like „Management must include a deep analysis of the context, considering everything that happens around it, such as the environment, the relationship with the public administration, knowing who the stakeholders are, the needs and expectations of its customers, leadership, relationship with its suppliers, communications, perception of the values of your brand, etc.“ (p. 11) are really to basic from general management and therefore need to be detailed. It is not clear why management really belongs to a quality model. In the conclusion chapter, authors state „Having reviewed the literature on the collaborative economy and the social economy“, I do not agree. There is no overview of this literature. The authors tap very shortly in some papers like Hamari et al. but not in papers according different areas/industries, or measures about quality perception from the users etc. There is for example a paper on „Unraveling the diverse nature of service quality in a sharing economy: A social exchange theory perspective of Airbnb accommodation“ (2017), or take the one for carsharing „Service quality management of online car-hailing based on PCN in the sharing economy“ (2019) or „CC-Qual: A holistic scale to assess customer perceptions of service quality of collaborative consumption services“ (2019).
Minor aspects
On page 1, the authors refer to the „boom“ of sharing. Please provide numbers and sources if it is such a boom.
On page 3, the authors write „There are also collaborative companies that, without being explicitly cooperative, fit within the principles of the social economy, responding to real problems (Gorenflo, 2015).“. Regarding real problems, isn`t it that also non-social companies respond to real problems? If yes, this reference to real problems might not help in defining.
On page 1, the authors write about communication between „equals“? What equals?
What „combined effects“ are the authors referring to?
Author Response
Please see the attach file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors, thank you very fast response. I was fully surprised to get a major overwork after 3 days. Major overwork is typically about weeks.
According the very short time for doing an overwork, I do not see that you explain fundamentally why you did as you did. I still miss the arguments why such model might be scientifically needed and where are your differences to other quality models. So, writing that the model is "relevant to offer guidance to help to SCC to be more sustainable by delivering quality products and services" is not a scientific explanation. Why it is necessary for science to have another model about quality? Where are the differences, how do you come to this model - from interviews of SCC? If there are no differences of SCC to other firms/organisations, then why science (not the firms) need a novel quality model? This is not fully clear with your answers. A evaluation of quality models from SCC practice could be done via interviews, observations or other research methods. In 3 days of course it is difficult to match. Thus, there is no information why we do need a fully different model for SCC compared to Non-SCC companies/organizations.
There are many issues where you aim to answer my questions, e.g., on 33%. However, simply saying it is like this and not providing any reasoning or proof ist not a real answer (e.g. "Because if the one partner do not has more that 33% of the shares, it is assurance that the power of the decision making process do not be concentrate in a single shareholder" - so, it could be also 49%).
