Relational Capital in the Technology Sector: An International Strategic Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The basic remark concerns the theoretical part the article. It seems that it is international to place relational capital more precisely among other capitals of the company. Generallly, relational capital is presented in the literature as one of the elements of social capital. Look: Social Capital in the company (meat and vegetable processing industry). Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference "Economic Sciences for Agribusiness and Rural Economy, 2018, 300-305. On the other hand, social capital is one of several capitals consisting the entire enterprise. Look: A Model for the Sustainable Management of Enterprise Capital, Sustainability 2021, 13(1),183. This arrangement will improve understanding of the content. After all, this article shows the relationship between relational capital and other capitals.
Author Response
Your comments, as well as the bibliography you mention, are very interesting. In this case, our research has followed the classical classification that establishes that the components of intellectual capital in organisations are basically three: human capital, structural capital, and relational capital. Although it is true that some authors refer to relational capital as social capital, or even some models treat it directly as customer capital.
In recent years, a number of alternative studies have emerged regarding the parts that make up intellectual capital. However, there is a certain degree of consensus on the establishment of a classification based on three dimensions, which is one that integrates human capital, structural capital, and relational capital (Stewart, 1997; Sullivan, 1999; Cañibaro et al., 1999; Brennan and Connell, 2000; Sánchez et al., 2000; Roos et al., 2001; Viedma Martí, 2001; Bontis, 2002; Kaufmann and Schneider, 2004; Boedker et al., 2005; Marr and Roos, 2005).
For its part, the Intellectus Model (CIC, 2003, 2011) highlights the existence of five capitals, instead of the three traditionally considered by intellectual capital models (human, structural, and relational), establishing two components of relational capital, namely business capital and social capital. Likewise, in the updated version of the Intellectus Model developed by the CIC (2011), a new capital is incorporated, the so-called entrepreneurship and innovation capital.
In this paper, we focus on the role of relational capital and conclude that Relational Capital management plays a critical role in achieving competitive advantages in business internationalisation. Relational Capital influences the internationalization of university spin-offs in a positive way. In addition, the firm's performance in its international activities depends on its capabilities to create and keep relationships with the relational capital agents. This way, a strategic analysis tool is developed focused to improve the management of relational capital in order to create value in one of the most influential sectors.
Thank you again for your comments, which are always enriching.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Title: A Strategic Model to create international value from the point
of view of relational capital in the technology sector
The abstract of the article does not reflect the content of the study well. It needs to be developed.
The introduction part of the article is few and insufficient. Images should be used in the introduction.
26 tables are too many for this article. The study deviates from its main purpose. Researchers should present the findings of the most important tables.
As regards the relationships are repeated three times in the Discussion section. This again shows the article as poor quality. Better language and grammar should be used.
The article should have a conclusion part.
The main theme of the subject should be presented to the reader more effectively. My verdict on the article is major revision.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Sir
Thank you for inviting me to review this paper. After reviewing this paper, I think that the quality of this paper is a little good. The method is good. The results show some main findings.
I have some comments that could enhance this paper as follows:
1/ The abstract should be rewritten by adding some information about the data, the technique...
2/ The introduction should be summarised by adding the structure of the paper, the main findings of the paper, as well as strongly confirming the novelty.
3/ 2.2. Methods and Data should be section 3. Section 2 should be Theoretical Framework and hypotheses development
4/ Hypotheses development should be shown in the Figure, It will be better for readers. You have hypetheses 2 and 3 together, it is hard to read in the current version. Therefore, Figure 1 should be here.
5/ Which hypotheses are the most important? Please showing at first.
6/ The sample size should be shown.
7/ Methods or Methodology? Source for Table 2, from which previous studies that support for these factors. Similarly for Table 3, ... 10. Some Tables should be combined.
8/ The paper is lack of data descriptive. Therefore, we cannot check the quality of the data.
9/ Explaining why Internationalisation (INT) cronbach's alpha is much lower than this of others.
10/ Why N = 14 (Table 20)
11/ Discussions should be shown the novelty
12/ The paper is lack of the conclusions, as well as the limitations.
Thank you
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors attempt to detect and investigate the impact of the relation capital on the
internationalisation of university spin-offs. Although interesting may be, I fear that the article needs significantly more work before it could be published.
First, given the scope of the journal, the authors should place the whole discussion under the notion of sustainable development and its association with knowledge (human capital). In this vein, a short discussion should be provided in the introduction and the following two articles should be included: (a) Meramveliotakis, G. & Manioudis, M. (2021) "History, Knowledge, and Sustainable Economic Development: The Contribution of John Stuart Mill’s Grand Stage Theory" Sustainability 13, no. 3: 1468. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031468and (b) Dasgupta, P. The idea of sustainable development. Sustain Sci 2, 5–11 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-007-0024-y
Second, the paper’s title does not reflect the content. The term “international value” is not appeared anywhere in the paper (let alone to exemplify it), neither the authors delve with the technology sector in general, but with university spin-offs particularly.
Third, throughout the paper, authors speak in terms of “internationalisation”, but they never attempt to exemplify what they exactly mean by it. In the very first paragraph, they argue that “it is directly related to the business internationalisation phenomenon, as companies are becoming increasingly more integrated into a network with other organisations, companies, or entities, as well as with other market agents”, but of course, such an interpretation does not correspond to the “internationalisation phenomenon”.
Fourth, a definition of spin-offs should be included as well.
Fifth, define the “internationalization of universities’ spin-offs”.
Sixth, the discussion the author made is relevant only in cases of internationalisation? In the sense that many spin-offs operate internally.
Seventh, why universities spin-offs? Only because we can select data for them? Do they imply some distinct characteristics that they differentiate from companies’ spin-offs?
Finally, a conclusion section should be included, with the possible limitations of the study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Article corrected as suggested
Author Response
Thank you for your feedback. We think the paper has really improved with the changes introduced and related to the English expression.
Reviewer 2 Report
I see that the authors did not make the necessary improvements.
26 tables are stated as too many, however there are still 27 tables in the article. No visual descriptions were made in the introduction.
Although the authors seem to have made the corrections, no appropiate corrections have been made.
The article is not suitable for publication.
Author Response
First of all, I would like to apologise, as I misunderstood an email. It was the reason why I only made the first reviewer's revisions.
With sincere thanks to the reviewer, who has undoubtedly contributed to the improvement of this paper, the following changes have been made:
Item 1. The abstract has been rewritten to reflect the content of the study.
Item 2. The introduction has been expanded to clarify the research topic. (Two new references related to economic sustainability have been introduced, the overall objective, and the main finding).
Item 3. The number of tables has been reduced. Some of them have been combined and others have been removed, but the important information to which they refer has been retained in the text. The paper now has 13 tables instead of 26 tables.
Item 4. The discussion section has been rewritten. The improvement of language and grammar has been addressed carefully.
Item 5. We have included a conclusion part.
- The English expression has been carefully revised almost throughout the text.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Sir
Please make the explanations for the comments on the manuscript as well as the answer to the reviewer. I cannot check with this version.
Thank you
Author Response
First of all, I would like to apologise, as I misunderstood an email. It was the reason why I only made the first reviewer's revisions.
With sincere thanks to the reviewer, who has undoubtedly contributed to the improvement of this paper, the following changes have been made:
Item 1. The abstract has been rewritten to reflect the content of the study and by adding some information about the data and the technique.
Item 2. The introduction has been expanded (Two new references related to economic sustainability have been introduced, as the overall objective, the main finding…The novelty is contained in the last two paragraphs of the discussion section.)
Item 3. We have reorganized the sections as instructed:
Section 2. Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses development
Section 3. Methods and Data
Item 4. Figure 1 has been moved to the section where the hypotheses are developed.
Item 5. The hypotheses are presented in the paper in order of significance, the most relevant of which is the first one.
Item 6. The paper reports the sample size: “As a result, there is a population of thirty-six internationalised spin-offs. A questionnaire with five-point Likert scale questions was distributed to those internationalised spin-offs. The questionnaire was focused on the indicators measuring each of the variables of the proposed models and covers the largest number of items. 14 spin-offs completed the survey, resulting in a participation rate of 39%.”
Item 7. The studies supporting the elements listed in table 2 have been analysed and presented previously, a summary of which is given in table 1.
In addition, tables have been combined as indicated.
Item 8. The descriptive study is done (attached). It has not been included in the article, but it can be added if it considers appropriate.
Item 9. Due to fewer items measuring this variable. Furthermore, if the average correlation between the items is low then the value of Cronbach's alpha will be low. And as explained in the paper “Internationalisation, which is 0.676, a value which can be acceptable [47], in particular, during the first stages of research [48] or in scales with fewer than 10 items [49]. As a result, it can be stated that the established scales are internally consistent.”
Item 10. N equals 14 because that is the sample we have. The study is carried out in the region of Andalusia, so we have a population of 36 internationalised university spin-offs, of which only 14 answered the questionnaire, so they make up the sample.
Item 11. The discussion section has been rewritten. The main novelty of the article is reflected in the final two paragraphs of the Discussions, which is the fact that the key concepts analysed (relational capital, networks of relationships, university spin-offs, and internationalisation) have been studied by various authors separately, but not all of them at the same time, as is done in this research to have a strategic vision of the issue:
“Several works analyse relational capital [16-27] relational capital and high-tech firms [6,52], relational capital and relationship networks in an international context [1,14], and spin-offs as entrepreneurial and knowledge transfer firms from the University to the economy and society [8,9,10,13].
Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that this research manages to provide a broad and integrative view of the key concepts on which it is based. This is a contrast to the existing literature, which does not jointly study the importance of relational capital, considering both individually and jointly each of its components, and the networks of relationships in the internationalisation of university spin-offs that are perceived as eminently entrepreneurially oriented.”
Item 12. We have included a conclusion part as well as the limitations.
Reviewer 4 Report
Unfortunately the authors did not accommodate any of my previous comments!! They have done only some short of editing. Please see again my previous comments and respond to them!
Author Response
First of all, I would like to apologise, as I misunderstood an email. It was the reason why I only made the first reviewer's revisions.
With sincere thanks to the reviewer, who has undoubtedly contributed to the improvement of this paper, the following changes have been made:
Item 1. The following references have been included in the introduction section from lines 62 to 66:
- Meramveliotakis, G.; Manioudis, M. History, Knowledge, and Sustainable Economic Development: The Contribution of John Stuart Mill’s Grand Stage Theory. Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1468. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031468
- Dasgupta, P. The idea of sustainable development. Sustainability Science (2007), 2, 5-11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-007-0024-y
Item 2. The title has been rewritten to reflect the content of the study. The university spin-offs under study are companies operating in the technology sector. As reported in the article “This paper analyses the impact of relational capital and relationship networks on business internationalisation, in particular in the technology sector in relation to internationalised Andalusian university spin-offs” or “The entities under study operate in different areas of activity within the technology sector. 50% of the companies operate in the area of biotechnology and agroindustry, the others are involved in activities related to ICTs, engineering and consultancy, renewable energies and aeronautics, and automation.”
Item 3. A definition of business internationalisation is incorporated (section 2.1; lines 139 to 145): “Based on a review of the literature on business internationalisation, the following definition could be established: a process by which the company carries out economic operations beyond national borders, thanks to the establishment and development of relationships with other agents (national and international) that allow and facilitate access to foreign markets, in which the company will commit a greater or lesser amount of resources, accumulating experiential knowledge that will subsequently constitute a competitive advantage for the organisation”.
Item 4. A definition of university spin-offs has been explained (Introduction section; lines 50 to 55): “This work considers, based on the studied literature, university spin-offs are companies created on the basis of knowledge or technologies carried out under the aegis of a university or public or private research centres and dedicated to the commercial exploitation of such knowledge or technologies [8,9,11,12], and which consist of research groups or staff who are directly related to those universities or public or private research centres [8,9,12].”
Item 5. As for the internationalisation of university spin-offs, in section 2.1 on line 126 of the paper there are 4 paragraphs dedicated to this.
Item 6. This research analyses the influence of relational capital on the internationalisation of university spin-offs, which is why only those spin-offs that are internationalised, in other words, those that operate in other markets, either because they export or because they have offices in other countries, as well as any other type of international activity, are taken into account for the analysis. The study does not include those that only operate at a local or national level.
Item 7. Why university spin-offs?:
Because they are a specific type of Technology-Based Firms, arising in the field of universities or technology centres, which in recent years have become one of the most effective mechanisms for transferring research results to the productive sector and play a very important role in innovation processes, in the creation of qualified employment and, consequently, in increasing socio-economic growth (Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014, Román-Martínez, et al., 2020).
In addition, following the literature review, the following criteria were taken into account for the selection of the sample:
- University background of the founder or academic entrepreneur (McQueen and Wallmark, 1982; Smilor et al., 1990; Weatherston, 1995; Carayannis et al., 1998; Bellini et al., 1999; Condom, 2003; Cotec, 2003; Grandi and Grimaldi, 2005; Eslee, 2006; Rodeiro, 2008; Valmaseda and Hernández, 2012; Treibich et al., 2013; Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014).
- Development of technology or knowledge generated within the university (McQueen and Wallmark, 1982; Smilor et al., 1990; Carayannis et al., 1998; Bellini et al., 1999; Klofsten and Jones-Evans, 2000; Clarysse et al, 2001; Condom, 2003; Cotec, 2003; Shane ,2004; Grandi and Grimaldi, 2005; Eslee, 2006; Rodeiro, 2008; Valmaseda and Hernandez, 2012; Treibich et al., 2013; Beldad, 2013; Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014).
- Direct transfer of technology or knowledge from the university to the company (McQueen and Wallmark, 1982; Carayannis et al., 1998; Clarysse et al., 2001; Degroof, 2002; Condom, 2003; Grandi and Grimaldi, 2005; Treibich et al., 2013; Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014).
- Commercial exploitation of the results of technology or knowledge originating in the university (Weatherston, 1995; Bellini et al., 1999; Clarysse et al., 2001; Degroof, 2002; Condom, 2003; Shane, 2004; Eslee, 2006; Valmaseda and Hernández, 2012; Treibich et al., 2013; Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014).
- Licensing or assignment of university intellectual property rights (Tang et al., 2004; Lockett and Wright, 2005; Grandi and Grimaldi, 2005; Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014).
- Contribution to the economy and social welfare (Treibich et al., 2013; Beldad, 2013; Iglesias et al., 2012, 2014).
Item 8. We have included a conclusion part as well as the limitations.
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have made the corrections, the article can be published with this form.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Sir. I feel happy with this version. Thanks
Reviewer 4 Report
Eventually the authors managed to address my comments.
