Pull and Push Factors of Data Analytics Adoption and Its Mediating Role on Operational Performance

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. In the abstract, the authors write: The study provided valuable data on the impact of DAA on SMEs in the manufacturing and service sectors of a developing country. And is there is nothing in the conclusions about this valuable data and what is its value?

 

2. The list of references is well developed, but there are inaccuracies. In the paper: (Mikalef et al., 2018). In the References: Mikalef, P., Boura, M., Lekakos, G., & Krogstie, J. 2019.  Big data analytics and firm performance: Findings from a mixed-method approach. Journal of Business Research, 98, 261-276.

In the paper: (Dowling, 1986). In the References: nothing

The rest is in need to be checked.

3. The logical connection between the annotation, hypotheses and conclusions is weakly expressed

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: In the abstract, the authors write: The study provided valuable data on the impact of DAA on SMEs in the manufacturing and service sectors of a developing country. And is there is nothing in the conclusions about this valuable data and what is its value?

Response to Point 1: The abstract does not state “… provided valuable data …”. Instead, it mentions “The study provided valuable evidence on the DAA …”. Nevertheless, the abstract has been revised for enhance clarity. 

 

Point 2: The list of references is well developed, but there are inaccuracies.

Response to Point 2: Citations and list of references have been improved and updated. Inconsistencies and missing items reported by reviewer have been addressed.

Example of missing reference added: Dowling, G. R. 4220030307_Ftp. Perceived Risk Concept Its Meas. 1986, 3 (3), 193–210.

Example of incosistencies of year publication: Mikalef, P.; Boura, M.; Lekakos, G.; Krogstie, J. Big Data Analytics and Firm Performance: Findings from a Mixed-Method Approach. J. Bus. Res. 2019, 98 (January), 261–276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.01.044.

 

Point 3: The logical connection between the annotation, hypotheses and conclusions is weakly expressed.

Response to Point 3: The article has been extensive revised to enhance coherence.  Arguments leading to hypothesis development were rephrased. Conclusion is also rewritten to better connect with main body. Please refer the revised version for reference.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The conclusion can be enhanced. The conclusion is not presented clearly and coherently with the main body. Further research agenda can be explained. Weakness in research can also be clarified.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1: The conclusion can be enhanced. The conclusion is not presented clearly and coherently with the main body. Further research agenda can be explained. Weakness in research can also be clarified.

Response to Point 1: Conclusion has been extensive revised. New points of argument are added, some existing argument rephrased while those considered inappropriate were removed. The revised version is now better connected to the main body to reflect the context of study. Explanation for suggestion for future research has been added.

Reviewer 3 Report

It should better relate the results of the study.
Some authors of the last century are cited in the final bibliography. Authors from 1982; 1988; 199; 1991, older than 30 years must be updated.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Point 1: It should better relate the results of the study. Some authors of the last century are cited in the final bibliography. Authors from 1982; 1988; 199; 1991, older than 30 years must be updated.

Response to Point 1: Suitability of older references was revaluated. Those considered important to the field of study were retained while others were dropped or replaced. 

Write-up for results, discussions, and conclusion have been revamped for better coherence. 

Reviewer 4 Report

This is a very nicely written paper. It examines an important issue and places the contribution of the paper very nicely in the literature. 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

Point 1: This is a very nicely written paper. It examines an important issue and places the contribution of the paper very nicely in the literature.

Response to Point 1: Thank you for complimentary comment. The paper has been further improved based on comments of other reviewers.

Reviewer 5 Report

This paper studies the adoption factors of data analytics and the impact on operational performance in small and medium firms. The topic is interesting, the authors seem to have conducted extensive literature review and quantitative analysis, and the conclusions make intuitive sense. However, the writing of this paper is very poor, which significantly flaws the validity of this research. Even after managing to read deeper, I see quite a few major issues, although I do not know if they are my misunderstanding due to the poor writing quality.

 

My first major concern is about the terminology. The term “predictors” in the title is confusing. The whole paper seems to use “factors” all the time. Furthermore, I am not sure if “push” and “pull” are proper words to describe the authors’ meaning. For example, the authors consider “push” as encouraging the adoption of data analytics. However, by analogy, the “push factors” have been used to indicate pushing something/people away. For example, “Push factors encourage people to leave their points of origin and settle elsewhere, while pull factors attract migrants to new areas.” (https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/society/push-pull-factors.php)

 

The first two paragraphs should be rephrased together. It is clear that the authors use these two paragraphs to argue the motive of this research. But there seems to be two difference things: The first paragraph mentions the “contradictory pieces of evidence”, while the second paragraph emphasizes the uncharted “mediating role on operational performance”. Where is the logic in between? Please note that it still reads well if we simply remove the first paragraph.

 

It is very confusing when reading the authors’ arguments related to “lower-order constructs” vs. “higher-order constructs”. From Line 144 to Line 149: You mentioned “three advantages”, but you gave “firstly” and “thirdly” only. More weirdly, you argue there are three advantages of “lower-order constructs”, but then you list advantages of “higher-order constructs” firstly and then thirdly. In Line 352, you clearly mentioned that you “conducted a higher-order-construct testing”.

 

Table 2-8 need to be better explained. The relevant texts should be better organized. The current explanations are chaotic and confusing. According to my understanding, in some places the authors only use those values to justify the validity of their analysis (e.g., p value), while there is a lack of explanation about what the analytical result is in the real-world context. For example, the authors say “these results confirmed that the formative construct holds adequate convergent validity.” So what? What does it mean to your previously defined hypothesis?

 

I think some  examples may be used to elaborate how those numbers are generated and/or what the indicators mean in those analyses. There is a tricky trade-off in academic writing: On one hand, the authors should not repeatedly report the known background knowledge. On the other hand, the authors should at least briefly explain some background knowledge to make the paper more self-contained. The trade-off can vary case by case, depending on how “well known” the known background knowledge is. In this case, I personally feel that some elaboration about those indicators are needed. For example, the explanation “The indicator loadings were higher by at least 0.1 than the correlation, thus proving the dissimilarity of the constructs” offers almost nothing for readers to understand. What are the indicator loadings? Where is the correlation? To make a contrast, a better human-language explanation about an indicator can be something like “A standard deviation is a measure of how dispersed the data is in relation to the mean”, although we usually do not explain standard deviation in papers.

 

This manuscript did not follow the template I believe. The section titles are not numbered. The citation formation is incorrect. The writing is very poor. I do not think the authors have carefully proofread their paper before the submission. I list several examples as follows:

Line 127: “Theory of Perceived Risk (TPR)” should appear much earlier, as you have used “TPR” already.

Line 138: “scholars have proposed numerous types of losses…” What does “losses” mean? Are they proposed or investigated?

Line 142: “substantial empirical evidence is based on the repeat indicator approach.” What is the repeat indicator approach?

Line 165-169: Please double check the writing/grammar for the “three primary types of technological changes”.

Line 299: You do not need a comma after “i.e.”

Line 315: Why do you suddenly mention “cloud adoption”? I do not think you can use any specific case to justify a generic concept/context.

Author Response

Please refer the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 6 Report

The paper is interesting but a few suggestions would increase the value of your paper:

1) in METHODOLOGY:

“The research instrument was pretested and piloted for content clarity and validity,  ensuring internal consistency. Next, judgemental sampling was employed via online surveys”.

- unfortunately, it is not known what is included in the survey!

2) in Table 2. Factor Loadings

- the authors must explain the symbols, e.g. TCPT1, …

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 6 Comments

Point 1: in METHODOLOGY:

“The research instrument was pretested and piloted for content clarity and validity, ensuring internal consistency. Next, judgmental sampling was employed via online surveys”.

- unfortunately, it is not known what is included in the survey!

Response to Point 1: Thank you for the suggestion. The survey items have been provided in Appendix B. Please refer the revised manuscript.

 

Point 2: in Table 2. Factor Loadings

- the authors must explain the symbols, e.g. TCPT1, …

Response to Point 2: A table to explain all abbreviations for Table 2 has been added. Please refer Appendix A of the revised manuscript. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The literature review has been improved.

The research design  has become clearer and  quite understandable.

Research methods are more comprehensible.

The presentation of the results and conclusions are acceptable.

Reviewer 5 Report

The authors mainly fixed reporting quality issues... But given the other reviewers' comments, I don't think it is worth arguing about further technical details.