Evaluation of Green Innovation Efficiency in Chinese Provincial Regions under High-Quality Development and Its Influencing Factors: An Empirical Study Based on Hybrid Data Envelopment Analysis and Multilevel Mixed-Effects Tobit Models
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article covers an interesting subject, and I would like to make the following constributions:
1) ABSTRACT
Abstract should say more about the methodology, as well as the work innovative contributions
2) INTRODUCTION
Introduction is very poor with respect to background based in previous studies and international context. Additionally, the author should provide information on article contributions to the body of knowledge in light of the current state-of-the-art in China and worldwilde. Furthermore, the scope of the study should be better delineated in the introduction.
Some issues become clear when section 2 (Literature review) is read, but one must bear in mind that some informantions are mandatory in introduction section.
Also, the citations are made in such a way that do not respect the journal rules.
Concerning "green economic development" the author have to check the definition from line 77 to 79. Do you want really say "ecological reduction". Rewrite it in a more meaningful way.
Example of any uninteresting sentence (line 79 - 80): "Schiederig et al. (2012) found that the concepts of green innovation, sustainable innovation, environmental innovation, and ecological innovation only differ slightly [7]."
The question is: what is slight difference did they find?
3) LITERATURE REVIEW
Line 137-138: what were the three major factors that hinder the technical efficiency of research input-output?
Line 227 - 241: The content is relevant for the introduction section where the work context and scope must be identified.
3. METHODOLOGY
I am afraid the this section is unable to allow the reproduction of the procedure the study by other researchers (mainly a young one).
Describe the procedure with more detail and include a user-friendly flowchart to depict the entire procedure.
4) MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS ...
As Figura 1 is about the green innovation you should adopt other color for the map, maybe green or blue.
5) ANALYSIS OF FACTORS ...
Stress the factors identified in rank them in an easy manner.
6. DISCUSSION
This section is very limited, and must be revised to cover:
1) the questions raised in the Introduction section
2) the factors influencing provincial green innovation...
7. RESULTS
Discussion cannot appear before the results!!! Therefore the right name for this section is Conclusion or Final Remarks.
The authors ignored several journals that published relevant works for the subject of the article, such as Sustainability (this journal), Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Environmental Management, Science of the Total Environment, and so on.
Author Response
PlePlease see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors, after our refeering, we suggest these recommendation changes to improve more the singnificance quality of the manuscript.
1. Abstract: ''This study adopts the Hybrid Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) 11 method to measure the green innovation efficiency of 30 provincial regions in China from 2013 to 2019 '' : there are two comments:
- Why authors used just 30 Regions? Why others China's regions do not be integrated in this study?
- The study's period: [2013 -2019] is not very recent as findings, other studies were published more recent today 2023 (in other region's countries with the comparaision model who is more statistical significance then just discriptive model use in this study).
- Introduction :
The introduction needs more to imporve (add at least 02 paragraphes).
At the end of the introduction join this structure manner: in the second section..........., the third section presents........... etc.
- Literature review section :
- Research Related to Green Innovation and Its Measurement : Authors used (other reference cited forms: exp. Kemp et al. (2007); Ying and Zhou (2009) ; Li (2015) ; Wang et al. (2023) ; etc.)
Do not use these reference forms: But follow the sustainability author-guidline like: [...] ; [...] ; etc.
- From the page 88 -131 : try to decompose to simple clair paragraphes !!
- Research on Factors Influencing Green Innovation Efficiency :
Do not use these reference forms ( Guo et al. (2013) , Wu et al. (2014) ; .......... etc) : But follow the sustainability author-guidline like: [...] ; [...] ; etc.
- From the page 133 -202 : try to decompose to simple clair paragraphes !!
- Kindly update literature by adding new studies. New recent research sutdies/ papers must be add in this section to improve more section. We can help authors with these reference papers to provide more the significance quality : ( Luigi A.; Mohsen, B.; Xihui, C.; Concetto, P.V. 2021.Knowledge spillovers and technical efficiency for cleaner production: An economic analysis from agriculture innovation, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol.320,128830, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128830.
Aldieri, L.; Brahmi, M.; Bruno, B.& Vinci, C.P. 2021. Circular Economy Business Models: The Complementarities with Sharing Economy and Eco-Innovations Investments, Sustainability,13(22),12438. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212438
Hamrouni, B.; Bourouis, A.; Korichi, A.& Brahmi, M.2021. Explainable Ontology-Based Intelligent Decision Support System for Business Model Design and Sustainability, Sustainability, 13(17), 9819. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179819
3. Methodology :
- Authors used (Hybrid-DEA Model) : it analyzes the efficiency values of a specific ???(?0 , ?0 ) = (?0 ? , ?? ?? , ?0 ? , ?0 ??) ∊ ?, and the formula used for this analysis is as follows ( ADD the author's REFERENCE SOURCE of this FORMULA).
- 3.1.2. Selection of Input and Output Indicators : ( s Li et al. [25], Shen et al. [26], Xu et al. [45], Han et al. [46], and Yin et al. [47] ). Correct this like : [25], [26], [45], [46], [47] ). Do not add authors names (is the ruler in austainability authorguidline).
- Table 1. Green innovation efficiency inputs, outputs and impact factor variables : ( ADD SOURCE : like: Author's contribution)
- Input/output VARIABLES : need-s to be improved by other referent variables!
- Table 2. Distribution of high-quality economic development levels in Chinese provinces : ( ADD SOURCE : like: Author's contribution)
- Table 3. Descriptive statistics for variables : Source + software used !
4. Measurement Analysis of Provincial Green Innovation Efficiency in China
- DEA-SOLVER Pro8 software: Why Stata software do not be usueful?
- Figure 1. 2013-2019 Average green innovation efficiency quintile map of Chinese provinces. ( in APPENDIX)
- 5.2.3. One-period lag of the influencing factors : ( in APPENDIX)
- Figure3. Kernel density estimation plot of coefficients; Figure 4. Kernel density estimation plot of Z-values, Figure 5. Scatter plot of P-values and coefficients ( in APPENDIX)
- Figure 6. Scatter plot of Moran's I index in 2013 Figure 7. Scatter plot of Moran's I index in 2016; Figure 8. Scatter plot of Moran's I index in 2019 ( in APPENDIX)
6. Discussion : It needs more significance arguments from your study to improve this section (add at least 2 paragraphs).
7. Findings / results : idem. ( like the discussion section).
8. Conclusion, limitations and future research recommendations: IS MISSED !!
9. Reference : All new recent referencce added in the literature section must certainly be joined this this section.
Professionnel english revison is need to improve some spelling and grammar.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
the paper contains good contribution to the well-established literature.
1. more explanation on the contribution of the article is needed.
2. policy implication should be explained in details
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have made changes that improve the manuscript somewhat and reached the average level for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
Author try to check all the spelling/ if there are some missed to rectify them before the full acceptance by the Editor.
Thank you for your full revision and cover letter answers.
Good luck
