Strategic Management of External Disruptions on Realization of Business Plans—Case of Serbian Manufacturing Companies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I believe that the paper has some interesting points to raise, but it needs further development and justification. The paper has some weaknesses or areas where additional explanations are needed.  

 1. (line 378-379) H3: “Achievement of forecasted incomes is directly affected by supply chain stability measured through number of its participants”. In my opinion, this is a controversial statement that requires clarification or assumptions. The factors affect the sustainability of the supply chain depends on the form of integration interaction between economic entities. Recent research based on supply chain analysis uses the concept of the network as a basis for describing the relationships of companies and organizations, as well as the geography of production and distribution in the global economy. Entrepreneurial ecosystems, clusters, industrial networks, digital platforms, etc. they become territorial network nodes of global chains. On the one hand, global chains horizontally permeate sectors and countries, ensuring the growing diversification of the world economy, on the other hand, they form local nodes in various territories, where its specialization is deepening. These nodes provide dynamic interaction of local and global resource flows. The stability of the network forms of an organization is determined primarily by the number of connections between the main actors, not only their number. I think it is necessary to add the position of the scientific community on this issue to the Literary Review section and the position of the authors of the article to the Discussion section in the context of the direction of further research.

2.  In Methodology Section It is necessary to justify the choice of indicators. The indicators (Income growth etc) proposed by the authors are more suitable for assessing financial stability. How did you put various parameters (qualitative and quantitative) in comparable form for their further integration? Have you checked the coherence of expert estimates and by what method? The authors' contribution to the development of the methodology is unclear.

3. (line 613-617) «The rationale for “internationalization” and “predictability of business outcome” as two important factors of stability..»

I would recommend the authors to give an interpretation of the following terms used in the article: sustainability, stability, sustainable development. What do the authors mean by the term «sustainable supply chain»? In the theory of complex systems, sustainability and sustainable development have opposite meanings. And stability is a stationary state that does not provide for any changes.

4.Section Discussion should be more developed and focused on the relevance of the results obtained correlated with similar recent studies in the field. Additionally, further research has not been developed and need to be added.

 

Regards,

Reviewer

Author Response

Please find attached response to first reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have as their case study Serbian manufacturing companies and attempt to show how firms have to manage external disruptions in the realization of Business Plans. Authors rightly point out that firms should manage external disruptions to achieve sustainability. Some points are necessary to improve the paper’s direction:

1. Authors should enrich the COVID-19 pandemic's consequences on SMEs. Some pieces are necessary: M.R. Hossain, F. Akhter, and M.M. Sultana (2022). SMEs in Covid-19 Crisis and Combating Strategies: A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and A Case from Emerging Economy. Operations Research Perspectives https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orp.2022.100222 and G. Meramveliotakis and M. Manioudis (2021). Sustainable Development, COVID-19 and Small Business in Greece: Small is not Beautiful. Administrative Sciences, 11(3), 90.

22. The government’s support of Serbian firms (p. 1-2) should be further analyzed. It is important to stress the state’s role in how firms manage external shocks. In addition, I advise authors to see the Annual Report on SMEs 2020/2021 (https://www.ggb.gr/sites/default/files/basic-page-files/SME%20Annual%20Report%20-%202021.pdf) and Serbia’s most recent SBA Fact Sheets. SBA is an important piece to understanding the basic indicators of entrepreneurship.

33. Please rephrase the first sentence of the last paragraph of the introduction (p. 3) as “the paper is structured around five sections”. In addition, please be more specific in describing the structure of the paper.

44. The H3 hypothesis is complicated. Please rephrase it and be more specific.

55. I think that the regional differentiation (p. 9) should be further exemplified in your discussion section.

66. Authors have to define sustainability. What do you mean by business sustainability?

77. A conclusion is missing here. Please summarise your key findings in a separate section.  

Author Response

Please find attached response to reviewer 2 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper covers an interesting topic for business survival research. That said, in addition to the overall quality of writing needed to be improved there are several issues that need to be addressed.

a) the research aims and objectives need to seen to have originated in the context of the relevant literature more, i.e. is the problem a national or more of a global issues. How then does the paper fit in with this research.

b) Serbia had a particular context during COVID-19 that need to be detailed. Did the governments interventions affect some sectors more than others? One would assume they would so this therefore needs to be detailed as well as its implications.

c) More detail needs to be provided on the first wave of research in terms of how conducted.

d) implications needs to drawn out more, especially in terms of contributing to the wider understanding of business survival.

Author Response

Please find attached our response to reviewer 3 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review the article Strategic Management of External Disruptions on Realization of Business Plans - Case of Serbian Manufacturing Companies. The article is of interest, well structured, meets the scientific requirements for writing. The research tools used are appropriate to the study conducted, the results obtained and the discussions made are relevant. The bibliographical sources are up-to-date and appropriate to the research.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you, much obliged!

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I believe that the authors have sufficiently addressed my previous comments and that their additions have improved the paper.

Author Response

Respected reviewer,

Thank you very much, we have now edited english language with the help of professional english services person.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the revisions to the paper which has improved.

However, further English editing and reference checking is definitely required.

Author Response

Respected reviewer,

We have now edited English language with the help of professional English speaker, and also we have improved all referencing in the paper.