Knowledge Creation for Digital Innovation in Malaysia: Practitioners’ Standpoint
Vitor Ferreira
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I congratulate the authors for writing this article. I would like to suggest to the authors to add propositions from the conceptual model developed.
P1: Transactive Memory Systems are positively related to knowledge creation.
P2: IT support is positively related to knowledge creation
P3: T-shaped skills are positively related to knowledge creation
P4: Knowledge creation is positively related to digital innovation
P5: Knowledge creation mediates the relationship between Transactive memory system, IT support, T-shaped skills, and digital innovation
Expand the discussion a bit. Right now, the discussion section is very thin.
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable feedbacks. Hypotheses H1-H4 were added into Discussion section.
H5 was not added on Knowledge creation’s role as mediator of the relationship between Transactive memory system, IT support, T-shaped skills, and digital innovation.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper puts effort to contribute to knowledge management and innovation literature, but does not fulfill the aims.
1. the literature reviews only 25 articles , and some of them are already well known KM works, that do not need special introduction.
2. This field is quite well investigated and the research model that you have created could have been easily constructed from just the review of literature
3. Originality, and contribution to the field of knowledge managment is quite low, thus i dont see the value of publishing the paper in a higher tier journal
Author Response
Thank you for your comment. The paper has now expanded to 53 literature review, more detail work on the research has been explained. We have improvised the paper by adding more findings of the research to this paper. Refer to pg no 11-12 Table 9 we are creating the mapping of the word cloud to themes and key variables.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article presents interesting issues, but no relevant research has been undertaken. The sample of respondents is too small. It's hard to say that the study is of great importance for science.
Abstract
1. The abstract needs a complete reformulation. The current version has to be corrected. Please provide a meaningful abstract - follow the same pattern as recommended for the highlights: 1) Background: place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: describe briefly the main methods applied; 3) Results: summarize the article's main findings; 4) Conclusion: indicate the main conclusions or interpretations.
2. Please explain what the acronym ASEAN stands for.
3. In Keywords, it is worth adding digital innovation.
Introduction section
4. The purpose of the study should look like this: “The aim of this paper is to identify current challenges in IT projects in Malaysia to uncover new knowledge and make greater improvements for the organisation.”
5. What are the research problems or research hypotheses? Line 158 suggests initial hypotheses, but they are not present in the study.
6. Please explain what the acronym ICT stands for.
7. Neither the Introduction nor the Literature Review defines Knowledge Creation.
8. The Introduction contains statements without any citations. E.g.: “KC has been a catalyst of global competitiveness for NI4.0. Competitive advantages 40 are generated through KC and contributed to the firm’s potential progress.”
9. Regarding the statement – “Competitive advantages are generated through KC and contributed to the firm's potential progress” – the questions arise: how does KC contribute to the progress of companies? what is the evidence of this?
10. In lines 47-48 should be: Section 3 describes the methodology of the research.
Literature review section
11. The literature review should be more in-depth. Indicate what research and with what methods have already been done in a given area.
12. In section 2.1, which has been called Knowledge in Organizations, the second paragraph (lines 58-64) is not related to companies as such but provides general information about knowledge. Please complete the content about the role of knowledge in organizations (f.e. describe the organizational learning process).
13. In lines 55-57 the work of selected authors is given, but the source of the citation is not given.
Methodology section
14. The methodology of the research work is not clear.
15. In lines 148-149 it is stated that "A total of 10 project managers from ICT organizations in Malaysia who have extensive experience management ICT projects and understand KC were selected". So the following questions arise:
· what does "extensive experience" mean? Table 2 shows that there was no restriction on the selection of subjects in terms of years of experience as the range varies from 0 to infinity. If we say that the subjects have extensive experience, it was necessary to define the minimum experience they should have and, in this case, reject all those below the indicated range. In this case, we can speak of selection;
· how do you know that the respondents “understand KC”? how has it been verified? as well as do the respondents understand KC in the same way or differently?
16. The sample of respondents is too small (the more that the respondents were to answer only 1 question).
17. Figure 1 shows the interview mapping process:
· the goal is not correctly defined as it does not capture the Knowledge Creation aspect, which is the main research goal, as the title of the article indicates;
· the Literature review rectangle includes the method (“Electronic search using keywords”), statement (“TMS, IT support, ... are critical challenges in IT projects in creating new knowledge”), and conclusion (“Current challenges in IT projects required detailed study...”). So what does a given rectangle actually contain? If the order of works/conclusions, then it should be clearly marked (directing arrows) and not bulleted as equivalent options in the same classification.
· in the Practice review through expert interview rectangle, the question mark is missing in the question posed, and numbering was added unnecessarily, as only one question was directed to the respondents at all. However, it is worth considering whether you should provide the question asked by experts in a given column, or rather indicate the method that was used?
· In lines 157-158 it indicates "Problem-centred interview (PCI) style was used to acquire knowledge and to understand the current scenario of problems to support initial hypotheses generation." Therefore, I suppose that the literature review provided grounds for creating a question directed to the respondents. If so, why do the Literature review and Practice review in Figure 1 run independently and in parallel?
18. In line 165 it was indicated that "The practitioners were reached through email and instant messaging". On line 155, it says, "Each interview lasted approximately one hour." I see an inconsistency in the information provided. What was the actual method of surveying the respondents and did each interview actually last 1 hour?
19. In line 237 it was indicated that the duration of the study was limited (“limited timeframe”). So what was the timeframe for the study?
Results section
20. The information contained in lines 173-174 is inconsistent with the information contained in Table 2.
21. The sentence in line 176 "In terms of project ..." should be deleted and the reference to Table 3 should appear in line 183.
22. Carefully reading the answers of the respondents presented in Table 7, it can be noticed that:
· expert 4 ("This may be a symptom of lack of clear communication between the parties") and 8 (“One of the most frequent challenges connected with any project is the issue of communication and the inability to establish an efficient communication channel between parties”) indicate communication problems. It should be included in Table 4;
· expert 10, in turn, points to a lack of stakeholder management skills ("Project manager also lack of stakeholder management skills"). It should be listed in Table 6.
23. The inability to extract the necessary information from the statement of expert no. 9 may indicate an imprecise or too extensive definition of the question addressed to the respondents.
24. The paper presents the word cloud (Figure 3), but there are no explanations for what purpose it is presented? what conclusions are drawn from it? Etc.
Discussion section
25. The section number is 5, not 4 (the next sections should be respectively numbered as 6 and 7).
26. In lines 245-246 it was indicated that "Researchers may gain a better grasp of the issues afflicting the KC community, such as how to improve communication, collaboration, and information sharing in IT Projects". It would be worthwhile if the authors of the work were tempted in the discussion section to, for example, suggest (e.g. based on a literature analysis) ways to improve communication, collaboration, and information sharing in the implementation of IT projects. What methods/tools would be helpful?
Conclusion
27. The conclusion does not adequately summarize the proposed solution. In the conclusion please do explain the significance of the research. There is no reference to the purpose/research problems of the article. While this study presents a specific problem area, nevertheless, the improvement to the state of the art has to be clearly shown and demonstrated by the results and stressed in the conclusion.
Technical remarks
28. In line 68, a colon should be placed after the word conversion.
29. In the article the word "organization" is spelled in two different ways (the second - "organisation"), I recommend that you use one way of writing a given word. Also TSM one time is spelled as Transactive Memory System the other time as transactive memory system (line 196). The same situation with T-shaped skills (t-shaped skills, T-Shaped Skills, T-shaped skills).
30. In lines 61, 106 – lack of dots; line 165 – unnecessary dot before the parenthesis, etc.
31. There are spelling errors in the article (f.e. in lines 16, 24, and 34).
Author Response
- Thank you for your valuable feedbacks. Abstract was reformulated by following the recommended patterns: 1) Background, 2) Methods, 3) Results and 4) Conclusion.
- Full name of Acronym ASEAN: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was added in the abstract.
- Digital innovation is added in Keywords now.
- The aim of the study was amended in Line 62-63.
- The research question added in Line 45-46. Propositions were added in Discussion section based on the findings.
- Full name of acronym ICT: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been added in Introduction Line 31-32.
- Definition of Knowledge Creation is updated in Section 2.2 Line 92-93.
- Citation for both statements are updated in Line 48 & 49.
- KC contribution to the progress of companies is explained in Line 52-55. Evidence of the KC contribution to companies updated in Line 50-52.
- Section 3 description is amended in Line 66-67.
- Past research on KC factors is updated in Section 2.2.1 Line 110-122. The research method of past studies is included in Table 1.
- The role of knowledge in organization with organizational learning process is described in Section 2.1 Line 82-87.
- Citation is updated in Line 74.
- The methodology of the research work is updated in Section 3 Methodology Line 192-198.
15(a) The selection of interviewee is extended in Line 209-210 with minimum requirement of 5 years’ experience managing ICT projects. Table 2 was amended combining both range of 0-5 and 6-9 years of experience.
15(b) The word “understand KC” was rephrase with “A total of 10 project managers from ICT organisations in Malaysia with at least 5 years of experience managing ICT projects, serving as subject matter expert inside the organization and generating learning materials.” In Line 210-211.
- Our aim is to a practice review. As such, we selected practitioners who can sufficiently give insights and inputs for the research questions raised in this paper. Time constraint and data saturation are among reasons for delimitation of the respondents, albeit interviewing more practitioners will be beneficial. Thank you.
17(a) The goal/purpose in Figure 1 was amended following the research question.
17(b) Directing arrows for works/conclusions in Literature Review rectangle box was amended in Figure 1.
17(c) Numbering for question was removed, question mark was posed and Practice Review was renamed as Problem-Centred Interview to replace Practice Review rectangle box Figure 1.
17(d) Thank you for your comment.
The reason of Literature review and Practice review in Figure 1 run independently and in parallel because the purpose of the PCI is to ensure that practical problems gathered through literatures are consistent with what the practitioners are experiencing, as highlighted in Line 204-205). Therefore, both activities are separated and running concurrently.
- The sentences were now improved. “The practitioners were reached through email and instant messaging for an invitation to attend face-to-face interviews.” (Line 226-227) and “Each face-to-face interview lasted approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour.” (Line 217-218)
- The timeframe of the study was updated in Line 330.
- The information was amended in Line 235-236 and now consistent with the information contained in Table 2.
- The sentence of “In terms of project management credibility (refer Table 3).” was removed.
22(a) Expert 4 & 8 responses in Table 8 were included in Table 5.
22(b) Expert 10 response in Table 8 were included in Table 7.
- Thank you for your comment. We will take note and improve for future work.
- Word cloud explanation and conclusion was added in result. (Line 274-284)
- 5. Discussion, 6. Limitation and 7. Conclusions section numbering was updated.
- The ways to improve communication, collaboration, and information sharing in the implementation of IT projects and tools to support on the collaboration were added in Discussion section. (Line 337-359)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
This is a well-written and interesting paper. How knowledge creation, teams and innovation tie together, seem to be crucial for I4.0 implementation and the authors try to approach this. But this reads like the preamble to a more throughout study and not a paper. There is too much focus on the abstract on NI4.0, not enough development on the text. The empirical analysis is very superficial. I would recommend to expand the paper and the research.
Author Response
Thank you for your comment. The paper has now expanded and more detail work on the research has been explained. We hope the paper reads better now.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Some improvements were made to increase the logic and coherency.
Additionally a research model was created. However the support the for hypothesized relationships is very weak.
The article also has also introduced some bibiliometric methods. However i do not see a reasonable justification for it.
Overall the qualitative study is mixed, with a bibliometric study, which in the end results in a conceptual model. All of the aspects are superficially elaborated.
Furthermore the paper lacks originality and contribution to the knowledge management field is rather low.
Author Response
Thank you for your comment. We have improvised the paper by adding more findings of the research to this paper.
Reviewer 3 Report
The article has been significantly improved by the authors. Please note a few considerations below:
- research hypotheses should be presented in the Introduction (and not on page 12); on page 12 there should be a reference to the hypotheses presented in the Introduction and an indication of whether the conducted research confirms or negates each of the hypotheses;
- participant 5 apparently signals issues in communicating ("Other than scheduled meetings or discussions, sometimes, it’s challenging to connect with each other"). Please consider whether the given opinion should not be included in table 5.
Technical remarks:
- pay attention to the dots (some of the table names have a dot at the end of them, some of them don't have it);
- section 4. Results should start on page 7;
- line spacing in the reference list is unequal (pay attention to items 17, 18, 24, 25, 41, 42).
Author Response
- Thank you for your valuable feedbacks. This paper is aimed to present the practitioners’ view as we conducted a practice review in order to understand the current scenario and real challenges faced by IT Project Managers. It is meant to build strong problem statement, research gap and research questions. At this junction, it may not be sufficient to state the hypothesis as it will need more literature review and evidence to derive hypotheses. As such, we have not included any hypotheses in this paper.
- Table 5 did not include participant 5 verbatims on ("Other than scheduled meetings or discussions, sometimes, it’s challenging to connect with each other").
- Dot is added at end of the Table 6 in Line 245.
- Section 4. Results title is moved to page 7.
- Line spacing in the reference list has been improved for item 17, 18, 24, 25, 41, 42.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors improved the quality of the literature review and structure. The paper reads better. Nevertheless, it’s still a preamble of a greater work (since we rely only on 10 interviews)
Author Response
We have improvised the paper by adding more findings of the research to this paper. This paper is aimed to provide the viewpoints of practitioners in the field of IT Projects and to map the inputs to build a strong problem statement, map to theory and identify clear practical problems.
