Assessing the Content Quality of Industry Technology Roadmaps
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I would suggest the authors to explain the connection of the paper to the following thesis:
https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/bitstream/200/9381/1/991022096417703411.pdf
to make the originality of the paper clear.
IMHO all equations should be re-edited to make them look more professional and more consistent (e.g. italics used consequerntly for variables in all the equations)!
Line 307-308:
; Qi means the quality score of each key attribute.
---
This is a redundant contents as Qi meaning has been introduced before!
Lines 375-376:
Each ITRM was scored by the four experts respectively so that each sub-attribute 375
ranked from 1 to 16.
---
This information seems to be redundant as it has been already presented in the former part of the paper!
Line 360:
Table 3.4 shows
-->
Table 4 shows
Lines 375-376:
Each ITRM was scored by the four experts respectively so that each sub-attribute ranked from 1 to 16.
---
This information seems to be redundant as it has been already presented in the former part of the paper!
Lines 176-182:
The following sentences should be ended by the stop sign:
Market forces: value chain (price and benefits influence), supply chain (influence of goods and service offering), macro environment (influence of buying power and consuming behavior) and micro environment (influence of productivity and sales behavior);
Technology forces: internal legitimacy (industrial influence of ITRM methodology and participants), supply chain (influence of technology for production), innovation chain (influence of technology status), industrial goals (influence of the strategies of technology development) and key technologies to develop (influence of the objectives of technology to develop)
Line 257 i 394...:
the information
-->
information
Line 416:
It revealed that the content construction of an ITRM
-->
It proved that the content construction of an ITRM
Author Response
Point 1: I would suggest the authors to explain the connection of the paper to the following thesis: https://theses.lib.polyu.edu.hk/bitstream/200/9381/1/991022096417703411.pdf
to make the originality of the paper clear.
Response 1: This paper has been written based on a part of Dr. Si Nuo Li's PhD thesis, for which Prof. Yi Li and Prof. Winnie Yu were the supervisors. To clarify the originality, the authors have applied for change of authorship to add relevant affiliation.
Point 2: IMHO all equations should be re-edited to make them look more professional and more consistent (e.g. italics used consequerntly for variables in all the equations)!
Response 2: All the equations have been re-edited in correct format.
Point 3: Line 307-308; Qi means the quality score of each key attribute. --- This is a redundant contents as Qi meaning has been introduced before!
Response 3: It has been deleted.
Point 4: Lines 375-376: Each ITRM was scored by the four experts respectively so that each sub-attribute 375 ranked from 1 to 16. --- This information seems to be redundant as it has been already presented in the former part of the paper!
Response 4: It has been deleted.
Point 5: Line 360: Table 3.4 shows -->Table 4 shows
Response 5: It has been revised.
Point 6: Lines 375-376: Each ITRM was scored by the four experts respectively so that each sub-attribute ranked from 1 to 16. --- This information seems to be redundant as it has been already presented in the former part of the paper!
Response 6: It has been deleted.
Point 7: Lines 176-182: The following sentences should be ended by the stop sign:
Market forces: value chain (price and benefits influence), supply chain (influence of goods and service offering), macro environment (influence of buying power and consuming behavior) and micro environment (influence of productivity and sales behavior);
Technology forces: internal legitimacy (industrial influence of ITRM methodology and participants), supply chain (influence of technology for production), innovation chain (influence of technology status), industrial goals (influence of the strategies of technology development) and key technologies to develop (influence of the objectives of technology to develop)
Response 7: It has been revised.
Point 8: Line 257 i 394...: the information --> information
Response 8: They have been revised.
Point 9: Line 416: It revealed that the content construction of an ITRM --> It proved that the content construction of an ITRM
Response 9: It has been revised.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Relevance
More than 10 years after its creation, it appears that Industry 4.0 is in full swing: Public search interest has risen 140 times since then, 50,000 research papers were published on the topic in 2021 alone, start-ups are now receiving a total of $3 billion in funding each year (Q3 2021 to Q3 2022), and M&A activity has doubled.
Economists, industrial experts and even economic policymakers all had an expectation that economic growth will peremptorily become higher, greener and more inclusive due to the industrial revolution. But none of these did happen so straightforwardly.
Against this background, a study that aims at designing an approach, a tool whereby industrial players and economic policy practitioners can get a better picture about how industrial technological development performs with respect to the plans developed (industry technology roadmaps, ITRMs) is an instructive way forward. The study does it not only at theoretical levels, but also at empirical levels by investigating/assessing four global textile ITRMs.
The paper’s merit is the fact that it dwells on the issue by building on a deep literature review and tackles the challenge’s complexity in a certain way.
Suggestions:
· more holistic roadmaps might be needed from the point of view of technological-economic paradigmatic shift-enhancing industrial development: roadmaps can be built via simulations/sceniario buildings as well, along which the authors should also mention the role of bench-scale demonstrations, pilot-scale demonstrations, and fully integrated prototype demonstrations once roadmaps have a holistic view by also pursuing a wider diffusion of the industrial technological development across the board (i.e., pushing and pulling the participation of SMEs as well via these tools);
· assessing roadmaps to decipher systemic challenges to be addressed by policymakers: the paper omits the aspect of how and why such ITRM assessment can help policymakers in identifying systemic discouraging/disincentivising mechanisms to general innovation dynamism. As a future research programme, it would be good to mention that opportunity. Eg. does the financial sector support the technological shift at all sizes of companies in a meaningful way? Are there any hidden regulatory barriers?
· incorporating already existing systemic challenges to industrial development: as the financial sector has become intact by the development of the real economy (ie. it started to live from itself), the disharmony between its expansion relative to be an effective intermediator to the real economy shall be considered once macro environment is to be taken into account as the authors suggest (the influence of buying power and consuming behavior relies on the power of financial sector to serve the real economy);
· the paper might refer to the complex socio-economic challenges advanced countries are facing today, e.g., (i) today, indebtedness begins to fall under a completely different judgment than before. Blanchard or Eichengreen latest books (Fiscal Policy under low interest rates / In Defense of public debt/ addressed that issue which is of crucial importance from the point of view of how to finance technological changes and how to assess ITRMs under this light. (ii) today the issue of promoting inclusive development is of essence, ITRMs shall in some way react to such aim (i.e., digitalisation, industry 4.0 has anti-inclusive character to be counterbalanced once inclusive development is a higher-level societal goal)
· Delphi survey to be integrated;
Author Response
Point 1: more holistic roadmaps might be needed from the point of view of technological-economic paradigmatic shift-enhancing industrial development: roadmaps can be built via simulations/sceniario buildings as well, along which the authors should also mention the role of bench-scale demonstrations, pilot-scale demonstrations, and fully integrated prototype demonstrations once roadmaps have a holistic view by also pursuing a wider diffusion of the industrial technological development across the board (i.e., pushing and pulling the participation of SMEs as well via these tools)
Response 1: In the process of selecting ITRMs for assessment, the authors have reviewed the literature as well as conducted pilot testing and professional consultations, through which the authors decided to assess ITRMs in the same industry with the fixed expert panel to make comparisons meaningful. Then it found difficult to collect the full versions of ITRMs, especially those in bench-scale and pilot-scale for corporates or some certain small group of organizations, since there might be confidential problems for public study. These four ITRMs in full versions were what the authors could get at the moment.
The suggestion of different roles of bench-scale, pilot-scale and integrated prototype is very inspired, and it can be further studied as subdivided research in future.
Point 2: assessing roadmaps to decipher systemic challenges to be addressed by policymakers: the paper omits the aspect of how and why such ITRM assessment can help policymakers in identifying systemic discouraging/disincentivising mechanisms to general innovation dynamism. As a future research programme, it would be good to mention that opportunity. Eg. does the financial sector support the technological shift at all sizes of companies in a meaningful way? Are there any hidden regulatory barriers?
Response 2: Thank you very much for the inspired suggestion. It will be meaningful to study this from the view of policymakers.
Point 3: incorporating already existing systemic challenges to industrial development: as the financial sector has become intact by the development of the real economy (ie. it started to live from itself), the disharmony between its expansion relative to be an effective intermediator to the real economy shall be considered once macro environment is to be taken into account as the authors suggest (the influence of buying power and consuming behavior relies on the power of financial sector to serve the real economy)
Response 3: From the perspective of relations between financial sector and real economy, the attribute "capital investment" has been included in Micro Environment, which links them together and points out the influence towards key technology development.
Point 4: the paper might refer to the complex socio-economic challenges advanced countries are facing today, e.g., (i) today, indebtedness begins to fall under a completely different judgment than before. Blanchard or Eichengreen latest books (Fiscal Policy under low interest rates / In Defense of public debt/ addressed that issue which is of crucial importance from the point of view of how to finance technological changes and how to assess ITRMs under this light. (ii) today the issue of promoting inclusive development is of essence, ITRMs shall in some way react to such aim (i.e., digitalisation, industry 4.0 has anti-inclusive character to be counterbalanced once inclusive development is a higher-level societal goal)
Response 4: The authors will pay intensive attentions to this problem and continue to refine the model within a certain time.
Point 5: Delphi survey to be integrated.
Response 5: Delphi has been applied in the step of measurement (from Line 361-367), which has been indicated more directly.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper is interesting and well structured and developed, only few suggestions to better improve it:
- Even if the acronym ITRM has been explained in the abstract, the first time it appears in text should be re-explainned, therefore in the first sentence of the introduction section it should be written in full.
- In the introduction section the gap present in literature should be better strengthened, and therefore also the aim of the research, to cover the gap. It has been said that “This is the first time that an original model with theoretical foundation and assessment approach to assess the quality of ITRM content has been proposed”, but Authors should briefly state what has been proposed in literature until now, and then better explain that in the theoretical framework.
- In par. 3.1 Development process, Authors say that “the existing literature surrounding technology 112 roadmaps at both corporate and industrial levels have been reviewed”, but what has been the criteria used to review the literature on this issue? The methods used should be explained.
- The discussion section should be better explained by comparing these results also with what was done in previous literature.
Author Response
Point 1: Even if the acronym ITRM has been explained in the abstract, the first time it appears in text should be re-explainned, therefore in the first sentence of the introduction section it should be written in full.
Response 1: It has been revised.
Point 2: In the introduction section the gap present in literature should be better strengthened, and therefore also the aim of the research, to cover the gap. It has been said that “This is the first time that an original model with theoretical foundation and assessment approach to assess the quality of ITRM content has been proposed”, but Authors should briefly state what has been proposed in literature until now, and then better explain that in the theoretical framework.
Response 2: A brief summary has been added for the research gap on Line 37-39. In order to make a condensed introduction, the authors have just briefly introduced representative studies in literature with key words in the first paragraph of the section introduction on Line 32-37. These studies have been elaborated with more details in the section Literature Review on Line 66-94.
Point 3: In par. 3.1 Development process, Authors say that “the existing literature surrounding technology 112 roadmaps at both corporate and industrial levels have been reviewed”, but what has been the criteria used to review the literature on this issue? The methods used should be explained.
Response 3: Line 117-120, the method for attribute summary from the literature has been added – Using key words including “technology roadmap” “technology roadmapping” and “assessment” “evaluation” “success factor” “metric”, research searched from the databases (Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholars) has been reviewed.
Point 4: The discussion section should be better explained by comparing these results also with what was done in previous literature.
Response 4: In the section 7.2, the authors have discussed advantages over the previous suggestions of success factors from Line 553-570.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
