Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Green Advertising in the Low-Carbon Supply Chain under Monopoly or Competitive Market

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read your manuscript. Your paper is promising, however, there are several issues that, in my opinion, authors should necessarily address.

1) The abstract should be an objective representation of the article, focus more on the relevance and novelty of the work, outcomes of this study, i.e., it should be less declarative, describe briefly the main methods applied and then present results.

2) The introduction part could be better structured and strengthened. The authors could be more convincing that the subject is crucial, in what elements and why. In the introduction, the significance of the problem is not well justified. This part lacks the argument in a solid and critical way. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Moreover, the authors should clearly state the aim of an article.

3) The paper lacks of a deeper analysis of scientific literature. I would suggest strengthening the results of the literature review using WoS.

4) There is a need to clarify the titles of sections 3, 3.1 and 3.2.

5) I suggest to add discussion part underlining more theoretical and practical implications, about how this study contributes to the literature, to present a comparison with research by other authors.

6) There is also a need to take a closer look at coherence between the article title, research questions, and research findings.

7) I hope the authors can re-think what the contribution of the manuscript is, who should use these results and for what purpose, what are the limitations of the research.

8) The list of references have to be made according to journal‘s requirements.

Good luck with the revision!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thanks for your letter and the referee reports on the first version of our paper. In this revision, we have tried to accommodate your comments. We did our best to answer all of them (see the attach). We detail more specifically how we addressed your comments one by one.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Research summary:

 The authors analyses the green advertising programme decisions of the remanufacturer and his retailer (non-coop vs. co-op green advertising) under different competitive scenarios in a low carbon supply chain. The authors argue that the retailer's and LCSC's profits are optimum in non-coop green advertising under monopoly conditions, they are not optimal in co-op green advertising under competition.

I appreciate the research work done in this manuscript. However, still there are few aspects by improving which the quality of this research can be further enhanced.

I have listed my major concerns below.

è In section, Abstract should be written due to some essential points such as research purposes, research methods, research contents and research effects, otherwise the innovation and necessity of the manuscript will not be reflected effectively. In the light of mentioned aspects it is required to rewrite the abstract.

 è Research questions as well as problem significance should be clearly stated in Section 1.

è The novelties of the proposed approach are not obvious compared to the literature. Literature review section is too short and does not provide a comparative analysis of the existing studies that weakens the contribution of this study.

 è In addition to this, authors are directed to provide a comprehensive literature review comparison table in terms of methodology, technique, factors etc. clearly depicting the contribution of the research to the existing literature.

è Results and discussion need to be more comprehensive which should result in limitations of this study and its possible future research avenues. The current explanations is not sufficient.

 è Conclusions should be rewritten to make it more constructive and conclusive. The capability and meaning of this study should be re-estimated. Managerial implications must be provided in a separate section. Limitations and future directions of the study must be comprehensively provided current description is not enough.

 è A separate section providing the “managerial insights” is required.

 è Please polish the English of the manuscript.    

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thanks for your letter and the referee reports on the first version of our paper. In this revision, we have tried to accommodate your comments. We did our best to answer all of them (see the reply below). We detail more specifically how we addressed your comments one by one.

 

Best regards,

Yimeng Li

 

ANSWERS TO THE COMMENTS OF REVIEWER

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we would like to thank you again for your time revising our paper and challenging our work. We truly believe that your comments are very useful and have added value to our paper. Below, we address your comments one at a time.  

• In section, Abstract should be written due to some essential points such as research purposes, research methods, research contents and research effects, otherwise the innovation and necessity of the manuscript will not be reflected effectively. In the light of mentioned aspects it is required to rewrite the abstract.

Thank you for your comment reminding us of the importance of presenting the key points in the abstract. This comment is very useful and we realize the abstract lacks several important contents. Hence, we rewrite the abstract by describing the methods, purposes, possible contributions, main research points, and findings. Please see the new version.

• Research questions as well as problem significance should be clearly stated in Section 1.

Thank you for this comment that help us make the introduction clearer and stress our research's significance. We admit the first version has a weakness in describing how this research is crucial and the difference between our paper and the previous literature. In new version, we strengthen the description of our motivation and the significance of our research at the end of the First and second paragraph.  

For example, in the first para, ‘A remanufacturing supply chain must build trust actively and arouse consumers’ low-carbon awareness. As green advertising significantly impacts consumers and it is still unclear how green advertising affects the low-carbon supply chain (LCSC), further research needs to discuss the advertisement decisions for remanufactured products in the supply chain.’

In the second para, ’Traditionally, the remanufacturing research has focused on operational issues from a supply point of view, and the advertising literature mainly discusses the new product promotion. Less attention has been paid to promoting the remanufactured products by advertising their eco-friendly practices transparent and accountable from the low-carbon supply chain. The effect of green advertising in LCSC has been mostly disregarded in the existing literature and a recent systematic review paper concludes that limited research has been done on advertisement decisions for remanufactured products[9]. Therefore, there is a need to formulate models to investigate LCSC’s optimal green advertisement decision.’

• The novelties of the proposed approach are not obvious compared to the literature. Literature review section is too short and does not provide a comparative analysis of the existing studies that weakens the contribution of this study.

Let us first thank you for your valuable feedback on the analysis of scientific literature. We have rewritten and updated the literature review, hoping to explain the related literature. We now stress our contribution to the literature and our main research points. Details can be seen in the new literature section. We now highlight how our paper differs from the related literature. First, we list two literature sections studying advertising in the traditional supply chain and advertisement in the remanufacturing supply chain. After each part, we conclude the main content of their studies and present the differences between our paper with the existing literature. 

• In addition to this, authors are directed to provide a comprehensive literature review comparison table in terms of methodology, technique, factors etc. clearly depicting the contribution of the research to the existing literature.

Thank you for this comment on a comprehensive literature review comparison table. It is very useful to figure out the contribution of this paper with the comparison table. A recent systematic review paper has listed many papers on the remanufactured products in the supply chain (Rizova, M.I..; Wong, T.C.; Ijomah, W. A systematic review of decision-making in remanufacturing. Computers & Industrial Engineering. 2020, 147, 106681) and concluded that limited research had been done on advertisement decisions for remanufactured products. We have tried to make the literature review comparison table. Most studies are on Engagement in remanufacturing, Supply chain coordination, Collection strategy, etc. Less is on the advertisement decision for remanufactured products. Therefore, to present the contribution, we retitle the literature part into two sub-sections: advertising in the traditional supply chain and advertisement in the remanufacturing supply chain.

• Results and discussion need to be more comprehensive which should result in limitations of this study and its possible future research avenues. The current explanations is not sufficient.
• Conclusions should be rewritten to make it more constructive and conclusive. The capability and meaning of this study should be re-estimated. Managerial implications must be provided in a separate section. Limitations and future directions of the study must be comprehensively provided current description is not enough.
• A separate section providing the “managerial insights” is required.

Thank you for the three comments and suggestions that help us improve the last part of this study. The three comments is for the conclusion part in the paper, so we address these comments together. According to these comments, we reconstruct the last part (conclusion) and divide it into 3 parts: findings, implication (theoretic or practical), limitation. We divide the implication into the theoretic or practical part. We also present how this paper differs the related literature in this part. We rewrite most of them and believe that the new version present these issues and explain the applicable purpose, limitation.

• Please polish the English of the manuscript.

Thank you for your comment. We check the writing of this paper and ask the proofreading by an expert in English.

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thanks for your letter and the referee reports on the first version of our paper. In this revision, we have tried to accommodate your comments. We did our best to answer all of them (see the reply below). We detail more specifically how we addressed your comments one by one.

 

Best regards,

Yimeng Li

 

ANSWERS TO THE COMMENTS OF REVIEWER

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we would like to thank you again for your time revising our paper and challenging our work. We truly believe that your comments are very useful and have added value to our paper. Below, we address your comments one at a time.  

• This paper does not give a specific numerical case to visuallyshow the effectiveness of the model and conclusions.

Thank you for your comment reminding us of the importance of a specific numerical case. We need to explain how we present the specific numerical case. We set the specific values to the variables (a,u,t) in our results and draw figures 1-4. These figures present the same results as our propositions. For example, it is easy to see how the remanufacturer, retailer, and supply chain's profits change in non-coop or coop mode in Figures 1 and 2 under different competition scenarios.   

• The motivation is not clear. The authors should strengthen the motivation for this study.

Thank you for this comment that help us stress our research's significance and motivation. We admit the first version has a weakness in describing motivation, how this research is crucial and the difference between our paper and the previous literature. In new version, we strengthen the description of our motivation and the significance of our research at the end of the First and second paragraph.  

For example, in the first para, ‘A remanufacturing supply chain must build trust actively and arouse consumers’ low-carbon awareness. As green advertising significantly impacts consumers and it is still unclear how green advertising affects the low-carbon supply chain (LCSC), further research needs to discuss the advertisement decisions for remanufactured products in the supply chain.’ 

In the second para, ’Traditionally, the remanufacturing research has focused on operational issues from a supply point of view, and the advertising literature mainly discusses the new product promotion. Less attention has been paid to promoting the remanufactured products by advertising their eco-friendly practices transparent and accountable from the low-carbon supply chain. The effect of green advertising in LCSC has been mostly disregarded in the existing literature and a recent systematic review paper concludes that limited research has been done on advertisement decisions for remanufactured products[9]. Therefore, there is a need to formulate models to investigate LCSC’s optimal green advertisement decision.’

• More comparisons with the up-to-date methods should be presented.

Let us first thank you for your valuable feedback on more comparisons with the up-to-date methods. We have rewritten and updated the literature review, hoping to address this comment. We now stress our contribution to the literature and our main research points. Details can be seen in the new literature section. We now highlight how our paper differs from the related literature. First, we list two literature sections studying advertising in the traditional supply chain and advertisement in the remanufacturing supply chain. After each part, we conclude the main content and methods of their studies and present the differences between our paper with the existing literature. 

• More recent publications should be cited. Such as Qu, S.; Li, Y.; Ji, Y. The mixed integer robust maximum expert consensus models for large-scale GDM under uncertainty circumstances. Appl. Soft Comput. 2021, 107, 107369.Ji, Y.; Li, H.; Zhang, H. Risk-averse twostage stochastic minimum cost consensus models with asymmetric adjustment cost. Group Decis. Negot. 2022, 31, 261–

Thank you for this comment on the citation of more recent literature. According to your comment, we update the literature.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for your responses and edited article. I see that you improved manuscript according to majority of my comments and it has higher quality now.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your letter. We appreciate your review effort on our paper, which helped our paper improve a lot. We are so glad that you give positive feedback on our revision. 

Thanks again for your support.
 
Best regards,
Yimeng Li

Reviewer 2 Report

·         First of all, literature review section is still weak. Authors are again directed to provide a detailed comparative analysis of the published studies.

·         Secondly, authors have not provided the literature review comparison table in terms of methodology, technique, factors etc. as mentioned earlier. Authors are again advised to make it a part of this research this would further highlight the contribution of this research.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your letter and the second referee report on the second version of our paper. In this revision, we have accommodated your comments on the literature part. We did our best to provide a comprehensive literature review comparison table after checking the related literature on the Web of Science. Please check the new version, and hope the version can address your comment.

Best regards,

Yimeng Li

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have cleared all of my concerns. So I think this paper can be accepted now.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your letter. We appreciate your review effort on our paper, which helped our paper improve a lot. We are so glad about your acceptance decision. 
Thanks again for your support.
 
Best regards,
Yimeng Li