From Public E-Procurement 3.0 to E-Procurement 4.0; A Critical Literature Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

The introduction should follow this rule:

- Paragraph 1 clearly states the importance and urgence of this study

- paragraph 2 explores previous related studies and positions this study among prior studies.

Some ref from MDPI especially in E-procurement could be used to strenghthen the literature review such as:

https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/5/1/16

- paragraph 3 explisitly states the gap or novelty of this study comparing prior studies mentioned in the 2nd paragrph

- there should be additional pargraph related to the structures of this article

 

In discussion section, there should be theoritical contribution of this study for current knowledge esoecially in the topic discussed .

 

In conclusion section: Please rewrite the conclusion section, make it shorter, solid. Make the solution into 2 or 3 pargraphs includes potential studeies and limitation

 

Author Response

Please find attached our responses to the meaningful and useful comments/suggestions of the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The article deals with important points: applying digital technologies from Industry 4.0 in Public E-Procurement processes. But some points need to be reviewed.

- The authors indicate in Figure 1 that a Critical literature review was done through Literature review and case studies review. But the methodology failed to indicate which research protocol was used in this literature review. For example, which databases were used in this literature review? Was it only research or a public report?

- The article talks a lot about Critical Success Factors, and they used the MIT 90's framework to classify the CSF. Is this framework still valid? Because it was created more than 30 years ago. It would be very important to bring evidence or current articles evidencing whether this CSF model is still in use today. Several articles in the current literature show how CSF structuring is done; I leave a very current reference (https://doi.org/10.1080/10429247.2020.1800385). They should analyze and explain if this MIT framework is still valid and make the appropriate updates from this research. It may even be one of the results.

- In Section 5.1, the first paragraph, the authors make the following statement: "The COVID-19 epidemic has accelerated the transformation, optimization, and automation of business...". In my opinion, this statement should be deleted because the authors do not present any evidence to support this in the article. To make this statement, the authors should compare the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic scenarios, which was not done. Thus, it should be excluded.

- The article brings a lot of gains to the literature, especially when analyzing Table 2. However, Table 2 is a little confusing if analyzed by managers, as the focus is on management. It would be very interesting to create an additional figure or table, more simplified and included in the conclusions, facilitating the understanding of managers and decision-makers. Please check if this is possible.

Author Response

Please find attached our responses to the meaningful and useful comments/suggestions of the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

- The problem of public procurement is a significant problem in almost all countries of the world, partly because of the large sum of money it involves, partly because of the convenience for corrupt and other criminal activities.

- The transition to e-public procurement represents a significant improvement in order to increase the transparency of public procurement and requires significant organizational and technological changes and innovations

- Authors detected technological and organizatona framework e-public procurement 4.0 chalanges/problems

- Authors detected technological and organizational common problems /chalanges e-public procurement 3.0-4.0

- Authors detected technological and organizational additional problems/chalanges in e-public procurement 3.0-4.0

- Authors detected the need for transition e-public procurement 3.0-4.0 and all complexity of this proces.

The following can be detected as areas for improvement: - the problem of e-public procurement is not sufficiently placed in the context of global economic development, which is threatened by corruption carried out through public procurement, which, according to some research, accounts for about 15% of global GDP

- the e-public procurement project is usually carried out within the framework of the implementation project of the quality management system in public administration, which as a rule is carried out by the governments of the countries, which also represents a significant aspect of the context

- the research is predominantly focused on the technological and organizational aspects of the problem, and less on understanding the context and significance for raising the level of quality of life for everyone, as well as the development of democracy globally

 

Author Response

Please find attached our responses to the meaningful and useful comments/suggestions of the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Thank you for considering the reviewers' suggestions. The article has evolved a lot and could show and explore the results very well. Congratulations.

Author Response

Attached is our response to Reviewer 2 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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 introduction section is insufficient. The authors should expand this section and they should explain the contributions and novelties of the study.

Managerial implications should be provided.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Thank you for the valuable enlightening and informative guidance in optimizing our work.

Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you very much for providing this manuscript for peer review and on your valuable work on an original and challenging research topic 

I am not sure that the concept of Industry 4.0 is well understood by the authors and I think there might be an essential lack in the manuscript to succesfully combine the topics of e-procurement and industry 4.0 which act on different levels.

Scope

While industry 4.0 (ID 4.0) has many potential elements like smart manufacturing, the internet of things, cyber physical systems, augmented autonomy, none of these elements in isolation constitute an ID 4.0 environment. ID 4.0 is essentially about bridging the gap between the physical and digital world, often by a form of interconnectedness between these worlds. As such an article about e-procurement can only reflect how procurement supports projects and realizations within an ID 4.0 environment. Although e-procurement itself has experienced advanced digitalization, this does not constitute 4.0 technologies as there is no link between digital and physical world. But the manuscript mainly talks about e-procurement or ID 4.0 in isolation without telling why e-procurement for ID 4.0 would differ from e-procurement for ID 3.0 expect from some generalizations like privacy issues, organizational complexities, etc. which are not exclusive for ID 4.0. In fact, the authors conclude that the procurement for 3.0 and 4.0 challenges are indeed very similar.

Methodology

The T.O.E framework in Table 2 and the visual comparison by the Hoshin Kanri matrix in Figure 2 does not much more than providing a taxonomy of ID 3.0 and ID 4.0 categories, further distributed in technological, organizational and environmental categories. But the methodology fails to deliver what the actual effects are on the challenges of the procurement process, except for the generalizations like aforementioned examples. Additionally, the authors fail to connect  the analysis mainly in the form of tables and figures on the one hand and the EU Public Procurement Policy Framework and EU’s e-Procurement 3.0 tools on the other hand which are explained in text form. The digitalization of the procurement process is in fact a separate issue than the digitalization of physical processes in an ID 4.0 environment, which generates two diverging research interests in this manuscript. The discussion section talks about e-publishing, e-invoicing, e-forms, etc. thereby focusing much more on digitalization of the procurement process than on actual ID 4.0 challenges and their effects on the procurement process. The Delphi method is mentioned and seems to be part of future research, but it is not made clear how this will be an integration or extension of this study.

I have also noticed that some refs do not necessarily support the claims made in the manuscript. For example: "The training upgrade in the use of emerging technologies 4.0 would prevent and detect common types of fraud and corruption risk and review the fraud risk assessment strategies" [65]. Ref [65] refers to a general webpage from which it is not clear where this paraphrase can be found. I noticed this on several occasions, and I think refs should be more precise to support actual research claims. 

I see that the authors have spent much efforts on their research, and I wish them a successful continuation of their research. Ultimately, I think issues with the scope and methodology fail to deliver the research aims stated in the beginning of the manuscript. 

Kind regards, the reviewer

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable enlightening and informative guidance in optimizing our work.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper presents a study attempting to highlight the challenges and possible directions of research about emerging technologies in Public Procurement within the period 2021-2027. Isn't 2021 already gone? Doesn't make sense to plan a strategy for such a short initial period. Table 2 is difficult to follow, you might summarize it or use keywords to shrink the table. Table A1 hasn't a legend to understand what the icons mean. The abstract is too long and it doesn't follow the typical structure motivation, current solutions, proposal and conclusions. Since this paper is more a review than a regular paper, which is your contribution? You must prepare a strategy for a plan beyond 2021, minimum 2022.

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable enlightening and informative guidance in optimizing our work.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Review report for the paper “Emerging technologies in Public Procurement complied with the EU policy priorities in Industry 4.0 era”

Abstract     
The abstract is loosely written. It is not as informative as expected. A standard abstract must present, without leaving any doubt, the objective of the paper precisely; source of data (which is not present in your abstract) and analytical approach used; key findings and any policy implication and recommendations.

Introduction
- The arguments are fairly presented but the statement that justifies the study does not come clearly (i.e. Why did you started this research?).
- The introduction does not precisely construct the research problem tackled and does not show how the problem is taken care.
- The research hypotheses’ are not mentioned in the introduction or clear in the literature review.

Literature review and critical analysis of theories, practices or commentary focusing on existing
documents     
- The study lacks clear description of the literature review:
- What I am missing is a description of the review. Did you conduct a systematic literature review? Which years? Key words? What was the literature you found?
- Can you better describe how you came to your variables? You have them from the literature review, but how was literature screened to derive these factors.

Results
The author has poorly discussed the results of the paper. One would expect to find the previous empirical work enriching the discussions of the results, but unfortunately, that has not been done.

Conclusion and Recommendation     
- The part of the recommendations is rather short, maybe you can strengthen that part in a way which really show the implication of the findings more clearly
- Add limitations of proposed study.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The required revisions are performed.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, 

On a practical note, it is a pity that there is no indication of the changes in the revision to facilitate an easier assessment of these changes. In response to my earlier review, the revision has improved in explaining which Industry 4.0-like technologies are related to public E-procurement and why they are part of the scope. 

The paper still misses logical coherence, which is the main critique of this revision. Many topics like electronic delivery and electronic access are a distinct topic from Industry 4.0-like technologies that are peripheral resources for the procurement process. And although the paper wants to discuss success factors, critical political objectives, challenges, policy priorities, there is too little of a methodological approach to justify the connection between all these elements.

Tables are too much based on cherrypicking of elements that together do not necessarily define logic  categories that can lead to conclusions. There is a disconnect between many topics that are discussed, and tables jump from causes, to challenges, to objectives, to side-effects without a systematic analysis. Although there is a better link with technologies that also emerge in Industry 4.0 most contents of the T.O.E. e-public procurement are for example only marginally linked to Industry 4.0 or even Industry 3.0.

I think the authors could benefit in the future from restricting the scope to a smaller unit of analysis that can more easily be analysed, while I recognise the efforts that the authors have done to research a very large amount amount of references and information.

I wish the authors a successful continuation of their research. 

Kind regards, the reviewer.

Reviewer 3 Report

Which are the differences wrt the previous version?