A State-of-the-Art Review of Sharing Economy Business Models and a Forecast of Future Research Directions for Sustainable Development: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 6)

In general, the paper is well written. Due to the character of the journal the title should also reflect the ‘sustainability’ context of the paper. It is suggested that the title should be modified, e.g. by adding the word ‘sustainability’. The review is positive. The paper may be published in the journal provided the comments given in the review are taken into account and the editor’s-in-chief approval is obtained.

Author Response

In general, the paper is well written. Due to the character of the journal the title should also reflect the ‘sustainability’ context of the paper. It is suggested that the title should be modified, e.g. by adding the word ‘sustainability’.

 

Response: Thanks. The title has been changed to "A state-of-the-art review of the sharing economy business models and forecast of future research directions for sustainable development: Bibliometric analysis approach", as you suggested. As a result, the entire section of "Future research directions" has been changed to "Future research directions for sustainable development". Therefore, the context of the section and subsections now focuses on sustainability. The conclusion section was modified as well.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 5)

N/A

Author Response

No comment and suggestion.

 

Response: Thanks for your review.

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

Good review article. I just advise an important thing for this paper. I think you shouldn’t put sustainability journal in your graphs, because this is not good vision for publish in same journal. My opinion this paper should publish at applied science or other can publish in same scope journals. 

Author Response

Comments and suggestions: Good review article. I just advise an important thing for this paper. I think you shouldn’t put sustainability journal in your graphs, because this is not good vision for publish in same journal. My opinion this paper should publish at applied science or other can publish in same scope journals.

Response: Thank you for your comments. In this research paper, the Journal of Sustainability appears in the graphs because it is the top contributor to the Sharing Economy Business Models research. Therefore, it would be great if these facts were to be published in the journal. Additionally, the key points of the "future research directions for sustainable development" section are all directly related to sustainable development.  The main focus of the journal is on these points.

 

Reviewer 4 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Thanks for your revisions.

Author Response

Comments and suggestions: No

Response: Thanks.

Reviewer 5 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

customize the writing template

Author Response

Comments and suggestions: customize the writing template

Response:  Thanks, This revision is based on the version/template provided by the editorial office.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

I suggested some of comment first step. 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations to your extensive work.

There are a few things that must be fixed and a few things you could consider

Must be fixed

You have not used Oxford as reference style which is what the Journal uses

Your Figures and Tables are in disorder with them not appearing in the text when mentioned. Some numbers are wrong and there is at least one duplicate.

Presentation of several of the figures is poor. Texts are often too small to be legible. You use too many abbreviations. Try to think of the reader. You risk of stumbling in the end of the run by not presenting your results in a way that makes them easy to interpret.

You discussions part is overstating the impact without credible evidence to back up the statements. Some parts of discussion in conclusions.

Conclusions should more clearly refer to your results making it easier for the reader to see your motivations.

Consider

Removing the Covid19 part. There is no clear link to the shared economy and Covid19. The development of the sharing economy like any area was affected by Covid19 since things where closed down. Following economic problems might affect the sharing economy like many other things. Your paper is about trends, not about causes. Why take up one cause - Covid19?

The method for assessing Covid 19 impact is weak since we are still partly in the Covid 19, like China. Would there be any interest in looking at Covid 19 effects on the sharing economy it would have to be done when Covid 19 is history and when all work done during the pandemic has been published. 

The article is already long and complex and does according to my opinion not benefit from the Covid 19 addition.

In the attaced manuscript I have marked some parts of text with yellow without any comment. This means that I think you should check the language. I have only marked occasionally when stumbling on what I believe are problematic expressions.

See also other comments in the attached manuscript

Author Response

There are a few things that must be fixed and a few things you could consider

Must be fixed

You have not used Oxford as reference style which is what the Journal uses

Response: The reference format has been changed.

Your Figures and Tables are in disorder with them not appearing in the text when mentioned. Some numbers are wrong and there is at least one duplicate.

Response: All figures and tables were numbered properly now. The in-text citations were corrected as well.

Presentation of several of the figures is poor. Texts are often too small to be legible. You use too many abbreviations. Try to think of the reader. You risk of stumbling in the end of the run by not presenting your results in a way that makes them easy to interpret.

Response: The poor-quality figures were reproduced. The fonts in the figures were enlarged to make them easy to read to audiences.

You discussions part is overstating the impact without credible evidence to back up the statements. Some parts of discussion in conclusions.

Response: The discussion and conclusion were rewritten. Every point was fully supported by the analyzed results.

Conclusions should more clearly refer to your results making it easier for the reader to see your motivations.

Response: The conclusion was rewritten. Every point was fully supported by the findings.

 

Consider

Removing the Covid19 part. There is no clear link to the shared economy and Covid19. The development of the sharing economy like any area was affected by Covid19 since things where closed down. Following economic problems might affect the sharing economy like many other things. Your paper is about trends, not about causes. Why take up one cause - Covid19?

The method for assessing Covid 19 impact is weak since we are still partly in the Covid 19, like China. Would there be any interest in looking at Covid 19 effects on the sharing economy it would have to be done when Covid 19 is history and when all work done during the pandemic has been published. 

The article is already long and complex and does according to my opinion not benefit from the Covid 19 addition.

In the attaced manuscript I have marked some parts of text with yellow without any comment. This means that I think you should check the language. I have only marked occasionally when stumbling on what I believe are problematic expressions.

See also other comments in the attached manuscript

Response: The suggestion was accepted. All COVID-19-related paragraphs were rewritten and the analyses of COVID-19 effects were removed.

More importantly, the manuscript was edited and proofread by university-certified proofreader.

Reviewer 2 Report

the paper is good, but it needs to be improved with the following suggestions:

1. it is stated that there are 7 problems that are answered in the conclusion, it is better that the 7 problems are explained clearly in the problems section.

2. the "conclusion" section is too long, it is better to be packaged in a short paragraph that concludes the contents of this research.

3. in Figure 1. the research process, it is better to show the process, or use verbs, so that it is clear what process is being carried out.

4. Writing pictures needs to be considered again. there is still image 1, in two different images.

5. The images "Top 20 most relevant sources" and "Top 20 most local cited sources" need to be re-drawn, so that the images are clear, not just cut and paste.

6. In figure 4 "Figure 4. Output of Bradford's law analysis" there is some information that is piled up, and cannot be read. maybe it can be presented in another form so that the information displayed in the image is legible.

Author Response

1. it is stated that there are 7 problems that are answered in the conclusion, it is better that the 7 problems are explained clearly in the problems section.

Response: Seven research questions were stated between line 88 and 94.

2. the "conclusion" section is too long, it is better to be packaged in a short paragraph that concludes the contents of this research.

Response: The conclusion section was rewritten; it is shorter and concise now.

3. in Figure 1. the research process, it is better to show the process, or use verbs, so that it is clear what process is being carried out.

Response: Changed to “five-step process of the research framework”.

4. Writing pictures needs to be considered again. there is still image 1, in two different images.

Response: The figure 1 is on one page now.

5. The images "Top 20 most relevant sources" and "Top 20 most local cited sources" need to be re-drawn, so that the images are clear, not just cut and paste.

Response: The figures were reproduced, and the font was enlarged for audiences to read now.

6. In figure 4 "Figure 4. Output of Bradford's law analysis" there is some information that is piled up, and cannot be read. maybe it can be presented in another form so that the information displayed in the image is legible.

Response: Great idea. The figure was reproduced by Excel.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

1. The formatting of the references in the text needs to be modified. For example, lines 29 cited ((Belk, 2014, 2017) can be directly replaced by the serial number [1]. The same is true for other references.

2. the author could have given a clearer conclusion of the study in the abstract.

3. Section Results could be a brief introduction to the Law of Bradford so as not to cause reading problems for the reader.

4. Section 4.2.4. Collaboration networks by authors, what does the low level of connectivity between collaborative networks by authors mean? Please provide a brief analysis.

5. In Section 4.3.2. Reference spectroscopy analysis, authors need to briefly describe the publication year spectroscopy (RPYS) analysis instead of just listing references.

6. Section Discussion for inadequate comparison of research results with existing literature, this section needs more literature support to clarify the research significance of the paper.

Author Response

1. The formatting of the references in the text needs to be modified. For example, lines 29 cited ((Belk, 2014, 2017) can be directly replaced by the serial number [1]. The same is true for other references.

Response: The reference format was changed both in the reference list and in-text citations.

2. the author could have given a clearer conclusion of the study in the abstract.

Response: The abstract was updated with a clear result of the study. Seven forecasted future research directions are stated in the abstract.

3. Section Results could be a brief introduction to the Law of Bradford so as not to cause reading problems for the reader.

Response: A brief introduction to the Law of Bradford was added into lines 282 to 285.

4. Section 4.2.4. Collaboration networks by authors, what does the low level of connectivity between collaborative networks by authors mean? Please provide a brief analysis.

Response: The term “low density of cooperative networks” was described and a reference was provided.

5. In Section 4.3.2. Reference spectroscopy analysis, authors need to briefly describe the publication year spectroscopy (RPYS) analysis instead of just listing references.

Response: RPYS was described now.

6. Section Discussion for inadequate comparison of research results with existing literature, this section needs more literature support to clarify the research significance of the paper.

Response: Thanks, the section was rewritten. Every point in the conclusion was directly linked to the result of the research now.

 

Reviewer 4 Report

line 271 write table 1 but should be table 7

585 table 2 but should be table 14

252 figure 1 but shoudl be figure 1

339 figure 2 but shoudl be figure 6

Also figure numbers and complitely paper should be write and check again

 

Author Response

line 271 write table 1 but should be table 7

Response: Fixed

585 table 2 but should be table 14

Response: Fixed

252 figure 1 but shoudl be figure 1

Response: Fixed

 

339 figure 2 but shoudl be figure 6

Response: Fixed

 

Also figure numbers and complitely paper should be write and check again

Response: All fixed. Thanks.

 

Reviewer 5 Report

The paper performs a bibliometric analysis to establish the state-of-the-art of sharing economy business models. The paper has seven basic questions that are being answered through the bibliometric analysis.

Strengths:

- The paper is well laid out.

- The analysis methodology is sound and the conclusions are backed by the results.

- The paper adds value to an important area of research.

Weaknesses:

- There are some flow/presentation things that could be improved, as discussed below:

1. The seven questions are important. Bullet them and present them clearly.

2. There are two figure 1. Some figures are captioned above and others captioned below. Please be consistent.

3. Above and below figure 6, there is a description box that may have been misplaced.

4. Future research directions - each of those paragraphs may be a sub-heading - improving readability.

5. Some figures have good quality while others are pixelated. Please improve quality and readability of figures overall.

- Inclusion and exclusion criteria is not explicitly explained. This is important in a bibliometric study.

- Scopus and WoS alone are not exhaustive. So, this must be addressed as a limitation when other limitations are discussed.

Author Response

The paper performs a bibliometric analysis to establish the state-of-the-art of sharing economy business models. The paper has seven basic questions that are being answered through the bibliometric analysis.

Strengths:

- The paper is well laid out.

- The analysis methodology is sound and the conclusions are backed by the results.

- The paper adds value to an important area of research.

Response: Thanks for your confirmation.

 

Weaknesses:

- There are some flow/presentation things that could be improved, as discussed below:

1. The seven questions are important. Bullet them and present them clearly.

Response: Amended.Bullet questions appear between line 92 and line 99.

2. There are two figure 1. Some figures are captioned above and others captioned below. Please be consistent.

Response: Fixed

3. Above and below figure 6, there is a description box that may have been misplaced.

Response: Fixed. The figure was reproduced.

4. Future research directions - each of those paragraphs may be a sub-heading - improving readability.

Response: Seven subsection were created.

5. Some figures have good quality while others are pixelated. Please improve quality and readability of figures overall.

Response: Most of the figures were reproduced and the readability was improved.

- Inclusion and exclusion criteria is not explicitly explained. This is important in a bibliometric study.

Response: Inclusion and exclusion criteria were further cleared in brackets.

- Scopus and WoS alone are not exhaustive. So, this must be addressed as a limitation when other limitations are discussed.

Response: Thanks, the suggestion was added as a limitation.

Reviewer 6 Report

The topic of the paper is interesting. However, when looking at the topic, it seems that the author(s) should have carried out a more in-depth analysis (the theoretical approach to research). In general, the paper is well written. The weakest point of the paper is its central part, which requires radical substantive corrections. In the paper the following should be corrected: (1) the introduction does not precisely define the research gap based on a literature query conducted on the basis of internationally recognized and prestigious databases such as Scopus or Web of Science Core Collection; (2) in the central part of the paper, a bit more in-depth scientific discussion should be made. ln general, the central part of the paper appears to be too brief. In the main body of the paper the author(s) should use a quantitative analysis, based on popular quantitative measures and methods, i.e. statistical analysis. This would allow the author(s) to draw other interesting conclusions; (3) the final part of the paper (conclusion) should contain basic conclusions drawn from the considerations presented earlier. In particular, the conclusions should thoroughly and clearly answer the question about the contribution of the research results presented in the paper to science. This part of the paper may contain subsections, i.e., implications for practice and future directions of research; (4) the paper should be proofread by a certified English translator. Nevertheless, applying all the corrections indicated in this review will allow the paper to be published in this journal. Overall, the review is positive. I emphasize once again that the paper may be published in this journal, provided that the comments contained in the review are taken into account and that the approval of the editor-in-chief is obtained.

Author Response

The topic of the paper is interesting. However, when looking at the topic, it seems that the author(s) should have carried out a more in-depth analysis (the theoretical approach to research). In general, the paper is well written. The weakest point of the paper is its central part, which requires radical substantive corrections. In the paper the following should be corrected:

• the introduction does not precisely define the research gap based on a literature query conducted on the basis of internationally recognized and prestigious databases such as Scopus or Web of Science Core Collection;

Response: The research gap was further defined.

• in the central part of the paper, a bit more in-depth scientific discussion should be made. ln general, the central part of the paper appears to be too brief. In the main body of the paper the author(s) should use a quantitative analysis, based on popular quantitative measures and methods, i.e. statistical analysis. This would allow the author(s) to draw other interesting conclusions; 

Response: The suggestion was accepted. Although this research is based on R-bibliometric quantitative analysis, a few measures were added based on your suggestion. These include the average number of h_index, g_index, m_index, TC, NP, PY_start from the top 20 sources. The total number of journals from top sources, etc. The conclusions from these statistics were added into the text.

• the final part of the paper (conclusion) should contain basic conclusions drawn from the considerations presented earlier. In particular, the conclusions should thoroughly and clearly answer the question about the contribution of the research results presented in the paper to science. This part of the paper may contain subsections, i.e., implications for practice and future directions of research;

Response: The conclusion section was rewritten. Every single point is directly linked to the analyzed results.

 

• the paper should be proofread by a certified English translator. Nevertheless, applying all the corrections indicated in this review will allow the paper to be published in this journal. Overall, the review is positive. I emphasize once again that the paper may be published in this journal, provided that the comments contained in the review are taken into account and that the approval of the editor-in-chief is obtained.

Response: Thanks for your suggestion. The revised version was edited and proofread by university-certified proofreader.