Emerging Key Elements of a Business Model for Sustaining the Cultural and Creative Industries in the Post-Pandemic Era
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The topic of the manuscript falls well into the scope of the special issue "Ecnomic recovery and prospects in a post-COVID-19 world".
However, I suggest the authors to revise the manuscript before publication.
First, the definition and scope of CCI are unclear. CCIs can be defined in a various ways and can include many different sub-sectors. For instance, according to UNESCO, CCIs include films, music, media arts, design, performing arts, publishing and etc. It is not easy for me to accept the general characteristics of CCIs across all sub sectors. Some sectors such as films, music and publishing are not seemed to be sharing the chareristics of small and local. I suggest the authors to further provide rationales, and further narrow down and refine the scope of the subject of your research. (For instance, it seems that the authors are interested in independent and local CCI firms).
Second, the need for this research is not very apealling. If the subject industry was an hospitality sector, people could easily understand the importance of a research. However, it is not easy to understand whether the topic is important with regard to the pandemic. Why the research on CCIs in the post pandemic era? Are there any evidences that the firms in the sectors have been severely hurt? If the authors provide more information about this point, this manuscript can be more apealing.
Third, it seems that the eight categories in the figure 1 have just drawn from the interviews. However, it would have been better if these were drawn from the analysis of literature review (in section 2). For instance, an approach such as drawing a framework of research from literature analysis and utilizing it for anlyzinf interviews might be better.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In general, the work is correct, highlighting the contextualisation of the proposal in relation to the background and the support of the methodology in the references studied.
On the other hand, the conclusions can be improved. Lines 626 to 631 describe the main obstacles proprietors face: “poor credit; excessive reliance on their personal management capability; difficulty in determining business performance; short product life cycles; insufficient innovation capability and IT investment; unclear marketing strategies; and difficulties in developing different marketing channels”. The author should reflect on this fact and establish some relationship between the obstacles encountered and the proposal of the eight elements for constructing a CCI business.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article is devoted to defining a set of key elements for building a business model of cultural and creative industry (CCI) firms. Such a set of elements can be of interest both to existing entrepreneurs of the cultural and creative industry, and to beginners in this field of business. The research was carried out on a current topic, and takes into account current trends in the digitalization of the economic system.
Suggestions and comments for the author:
1) it is desirable to structure the Abstract, in particular to add concise information about the methodology of the conducted research, as well as to clearly indicate the purpose of the article
2) in my opinion, it is worth specifying the research question and hypotheses that the author has shown as the basis of the conducted research. Further, at the end of the article, it is appropriate to specify which of the formulated hypotheses were proven
3) in the Conclusions, lines 616-621 look like an annotation, and not as a necessary component of the conclusion
4) research limitations can be written in a separate section after the section Results and discussion, rather than including them in the conclusions of the article
5) the obtained results can be presented visually (graphically) for better perception by readers
6) the Conclusions need to be refined, in particular a clearer description and author’s understanding of the obtained research results, their scientific and practical value
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
I have read the authors' responses and not I find that the manuscript has been revised. The issues I raised has been resolved.
I suggest this manuscript for publication.
