Cooperative Resilience during the Pandemic: Indonesia and Malaysia Evidence
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have very weakly structured the introduction with very minimal highlights on the theoretical contributions of the study. The authors failed to show any adequate understanding of the most recent literature on stakeholders theory and the importance of the dual responsibility of business corporation. The authors failed to elaborate on the role of the government from a theoretical perspective. The empirical part is very fragile and lack any robust techniques. The authors have significantly failed to acknowledge the alternative explanations of their proposed relationships. These are the major issues.
Author Response
Thank you for the comment. I have revised it.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper.
The focus on cooperatives and the role of stakeholders in their success is interesting.
As I started reading the abstract, I did not feel that it reflected well what the paper was about.
The introduction needs to be more pointed in the actual focus of the study: First you say you study the role of stakeholders in the success of cooperatives. Then you say you study the role of the government in enhancing them during the Covid19 pandemic. Then you say you explore why this form of business hasn’t been more successful in the past. I think these three are logically linked, but you do not bring that out very clearly at the moment. Please state very clearly what the MAIN research question is, and then you can discuss what other questions you derive or deduct from this.
It is striking that cooperatives has such a high importance in Indonesia. 60% of the GDP is huge! What is the equivalent percentage in Malaysia? How come these forms of business are more popular in your study part of the world than, say, Europe or the US?
Please cite the appropriate classical literature of stakeholder theory, such as Freeman (1984) and Donaldson & Preston (1995) – there is obviously much more, but at least these two should appear if you use this theory.
You need to explain the concept of “gotong royong”.
Please be more modest, you’re study is far from unique in combining stakeholder theory and social capital theory. It is relevant especially because it looks at an incredibly important form of corporate governance in Indonesia and Malaysia during a period of crisis, and it uses the theories to do so. In other words, it is not special because it uses the theories but because it’s empirical setting is special.
Please explain data section better. You are dropping a lot of links without explanation – this is confusing.
Why did you choose these sources? How did you evaluate them? You need to explain your methods.
Also: why are there so much more sources in Malaysia than in Indonesia? One would expect that there is a somewhat balanced number.
Your discussion of the regulatory environment is informative, but you make no link to the data you examined – how has your empirical evaluation led to your conclusions? Please use more and more clearly your sources to underline your conclusions.
It seems to me that the concept of gotong royong is really important in your findings – but this is only in relation to the cooperatives themselves. You don’t actually connect the stakeholder theory and the social capital theory. You use the first to discuss government, and the second to explain the inner workings of cooperatives. I would argue that you need to bring these together! You also need to use social capital theory to look at the government, and stakeholder theory to look at cooperatives internal workings – otherwise you are not combining the theories, you are just using them in parallel.
The point about innovation and technology at the end comes almost out of the blue. It seems like an important point, but needs to come in much earlier and needs better explanation and, again, sources!
The paper needs significant English language and grammar editing.
Author Response
Thank you for the valuable comment. I have revised it.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article focuses on the topic of cooperative resilience during pandemia period. The title seems to be appropriate, although it does not indicate the analyzed context: examples of two countries: Malaysia and Indonesia. The abstract is written correctly, although the purpose of the study should be clearly indicated. The keywords are appropriate but there is no mention of a regional approach.
Introduction is acceptable, setting the topic in context and defining research objectives.
Definitely, the literature review is unacceptable as it is too short. A review of the literature should get to know the subject in depth and be the basis for the derivation of research hypotheses. This section should be corrected. More numbers should be used to quote (minimum 70 items).
In the section: Materials and Method - the research method is not fully described. There is no information when the qualitative study was conducted.
However, in the article there are many editing and linguistic errors which prove insufficient diligence of the authors in the preparation of this material
Tables are unsigned and there is no source information.
Each article should contain a section: discussion and research limitations. It was missing here.
Author Response
Thank you for the valuable comment. I have revised it.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I suggest that you update your literature review section with both seminal papers (influential ones relevant to your paper) and more recent ones that are relevant to your research.
Author Response
Thank you for the valuable comments. I have added 11 references needed to clarify the literature review
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper has greatly improved in clarity and framing, thank you for your work on this in response to my review.
Author Response
Thank you in abundance for your valuable comments. It is mean a lot to me.
