Fostering Youth Entrepreneurship Development through Social Business—Evidence from Bangladesh

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper represents an interesting research effort focused on improving understanding of how SBF can impact not only young entrepreneurs but also their community and has the potential to be applicable in different contexts and countries. The authors have done a good job. However, there are some rather technical issues that I hope, if addressed, will help improve the paper.

1. The paper needs professional proofreading in English. The English language is not consistently bad, but there are some odd sentences and misspelled words

         (e.g., no need for the plural - youth is better than YOUTHS because is the usual term for young people (both male and female); In Bangladesh, unemployment is one of the major barriers to accelerating the economic growth of the county- the world should probably be COUNTRY; "... both by the GoB and NGOs focusing the rural poor women..." - this part of the sentence is missing ON - "focusing ON rural poor women"; researchers claims; if the sentence starts with although, then it needs an ending... etc.)

2. "The average size of SBF is BDT (Bangladeshi currency) 1,06, 344 which is usually given for 3- 5 years period" - Excuse my ignorance, but I do not understand the numbers because of all the commas. If this is a currency, should there be a period somewhere?

3. "...were selected from the other upazilas of those districts" - I do not understand the word UPAZILAS (tried to find it, but it does not seem to be an English word, so it could be a problem for other readers as well)

4.    The assumption of Conditional Independence Assumption (CIA) needs to be satisfied" - Conditional Independence Assumption needs to be satisfied, not the assumption of CIA, right?

5. "This study indicated that the NEP has preferred the younger entrepreneurs who are generally more energetic" - How does the study indicate this? The age of the treatment group is 30 and the control group is 29. You selected young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35, and if the control group is 30, they are more likely to be older younger entrepreneurs, right?

6.     You use two terms - micro entrepreneur and small entrepreneur - neither of which I like, but the term micro entrepreneur is much more common than the term "small entrepreneur," so I suggest that you continue to use the term micro entrepreneur or, even better, "micro business owner" and/or "small business owner.

7.       Table 4 - should not it be NNM and KNM instead of NN and KN?

8.  Conclusion - this is a good paper with policy recommendations, but it would be good to see the implications that you find interesting for further research.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to thank the authors for the opportunity of reading and comment on their work. 

The topic developed is very interesting and new. However, the paper is still in an embryonic version. The main weakness I found is the absence of a theoretical foundation that explains and reinforces the context in which public policies are developed.

There is no literature review that explains the importance of promoting youth entrepreneurship. Also, it is important to discuss the individual characteristics that influence entrepreneurial endeavors. 

In regard to the empirical part, it is important to explain the representativeness of the sample as well as the data collection methods. 

Finally, it is very important to dig deeper into the results to further explore the conclusions and design some policy recommendations. The topic deserves some adjustment to public policy as the measures aiming at the promotion of entrepreneurial endeavors are core in the present moment. 

I strongly encourage the robustness of the theoretical foundations. The literature review will allow the paper to gain scientific soundness and reach of the paper. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

From the overall presentation I would say that interesting research work has been done. The topic is also important for the readers of the journal. However, I have a few more significant challenges with the paper. 

A more detailed explanation of theoretical background and research design needs to be supplemented for this paper to be published. You should include some hypotheses and test them. 

Please revise “Average Treatment Effect on treated (ATT)” (2) and model “LnPi=1-Pi=δ0+δ1X1+δ2X2+δ3X3+δ4X4+δ5X5+δ6X6+δ7X7+μ (1)”. (Lines 244-246 and lines 257-258. 

 

The methods section is lacking information on the participant recruitment method, namely: a) a description of any inclusion/exclusion criteria that were applied to participant recruitment, b) a statement as to whether your sample can be considered representative of a larger population. 

“In this study, entrepreneurs who received SBF from GTT were treated as “Treatment Group” and the entrepreneurs who did not receive funds were treated as “Control Group””. The authors have analyzed only the differences between the two groups (treatment group vs control group) in terms of demographic status of entrepreneurs (Table 1). Please provide some explanations why the authors have not analyzed other differences between the two groups. For example, differences in terms of factors influencing income of the entrepreneur (see table 5- is only the case of NEP). 

 

The research methods used are appropriate but have limitations, and this should be mentioned. The validation of the models could be presented and justified. Furthermore, the uncertainties of the applied analysis could be discussed. 

The discussion is rather short and does not consider in detail the potential implications of the research. The empirical data would give more possibilities to improve the theory further. The authors should try to join in the findings with literature by underscoring ways they are similar to or different from findings in extent literature. An attempt should be made to stress how their work validates or refutes some theoretical positions more than others. 

 

The novelty of the paper is not sufficiently highlighted by the authors throughout the paper, and in the conclusions section. 

 

The conclusions only summarize some of the results, and do not highlight to what extent, and through what information, the paper presented contributes to the literature with original results. Conclusions should be expanded, pointing to the limitations of the analyzed problem and defining the directions of further research. 

The authors have to pay attention to references inside the paper as well as the reference list. 

Please pay attention to “Nearest Neighbor Matching (NNM)” and “Kernel Matching (KM)”. See table 3 (NNM and KNM) and table 4 (NN and KN). 

Line 53 “ of the county.” or country?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks to the authors for providing a revised version of the article. This version is far more solid than the former. 

However, there are some aspects to be improved: 

1. the introduction needs to encompass a clear and strong message about the importance of the topic as well as the contributions of the paper.

2. the research question needs to be stated and contextualized in the literature. 

3. Hypotheses need to be reformulated.

4. The connection with the empirical application needs to be stated to highlight the importance of the program as a contribution to the academic research. 

5. the empirical methods need to be discussed more directly: procedures/ data collection/ individuals involved....

6. the results need to be connected with previous literature. 

7 . limitations, future research, and recommendations need reformulation/ consolidation. 

8. please highlight the contributions of the paper and its additional worth. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

 

In the revised version, the manuscript has been extended and improved.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments. We have made all necessary corrections as per your suggestions with extensive English correction.