Searching for Dependencies between Business Strategies and Innovation Outputs in Manufacturing: An Analysis Based on CIS
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)
The authors seem to have addressed all the issues raised in the first revision round; thus, the paper can be considered for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you very much for your time spending on our paper and all your comments and suggestions.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Thanks for the opportunity to read the paper.
Authors could improve the paper so it could match the journal’s standards – at the moment the second part of the paper does not meet the standards of the journal and also different text formatting colors (red somewhere), and tables split between pages.
Authors make suitable references to other work in the same area of research, but sources at the moment are described not analyzed in the literature review part.
The second part of the paper is not complete. There is no scientific discussion at the end of the paper. Please add: theoretical and practical contributions and future research directions.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you very much for your time spending on our paper and all your comments and suggestions.
We appreciate your feedback as it improved the quality of our paper. You may find our responses to your remarks below.
"Authors could improve the paper so it could match the journal’s standards – at the moment the second part of the paper does not meet the standards of the journal and also different text formatting colors (red somewhere), and tables split between pages."
Thank you for this comment. We used the Sustainability template and wrote the paper according to the editorial guidelines. There were parts of text with red fonts that indicated what improvements were made into the resubmitted paper (track changes mode).
"The second part of the paper is not complete. There is no scientific discussion at the end of the paper. Please add: theoretical and practical contributions and future research directions."
The issues raised in the paper concern a topic that, to our best knowledge, has not been analyzed in the literature yet. For this reason, we are unable to conduct the concrete discussion. Thus, we changed the title of the section 4. Results (instead of Results and Discussion).
We are fully aware of the limitations related to the data used, which determined the methods used. All limitations and future research directions are described in the last paragraph of the paper (section 5. Conclusions).
We hope that you are satisfied with our response. Thank you very much for your work.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
I am satisfied with the manuscript in current form.
Satisfactory
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you very much for your time spending on our paper and all your comments and suggestions.
Yours sincerely,
Authors
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
A very interesting topic and methodology is applied where innovation strategies and innovation output are measured by using CIS 2018. The paper looks fine overall, however, i strongly suggest to pay attention to following points:
-Hypothesis 2 is unclear , specially its words, please simplify it. H1 is very clear though.
-Research methodology is again very interesting, but it is NOT properly described how the analysis is performed, which technique is applied, apart from cluster analysis? which software is used? or how the analysis is approached?.. - MAJOR POINT
-Please clarify the rationale of cluster analysis in explicit terms
-Discussion section more and more elaborating and explaining the results/findings infact...concrete discussion should be made.
-Conclusion is also reflecting the findings in other words, but what is the answer of "SO WHAT" and Practical and theoretical contributions & implications..and what could be done in future...
I hope these comments will help to improve the quality and credibility of your research. I wish you all the best.
Reviewer 2 Report
Thanks for the opportunity to read the paper ‘’Searching for dependencies between business strategies and innovation outputs in manufacturing: An analysis based on CIS‘’. The title is suitable for the research. Very topical.
Improvements:
1. In the introduction, authors should add the main theoretical research gap that they will fill with their research.
2. The research methodology should be described in detail.
3. Add more scientific discussion at the end of the paper.
4. Please add a theoretical and practical contribution, and future research directions.
Overall very good paper!
Reviewer 3 Report
The article has a very current and of great practical and academic interest. It has well-structured writing. The literature review discusses the concept of innovation and innovative activity, seeing some as output and others as input. The empirical part presents the importance of various strategies in different countries and different industries in different countries. It also designs country clusters. However, it is a very descriptive work, with no discussion of why the results were obtained.
The literature review, however, does not refer to the various countries and industries. It seems that the two parts have little connection between them. In my opinion, for the paper to be publishable, there would have to be a better relationship between the two parts. I also think that the discussion section should be further explored, trying to understand the implications.
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper entitled “Searching for dependencies between business strategies and innovation outputs in manufacturing: An analysis based on CIS” aims at analyzing find the relationship between business strategies used in industrial enterprises and their effects in the form of various types of innovations.
The authors have used and analyzed secondary data so as to develop their research.
The following amendments are required before the paper can be published.
1) The authors have referred to the litareture so as to support their analysis. In various parts of the literature they are analyzing the relationship between environmental innovation and firms’ competitive advantage. However, they do not critically discuss their analysis based on the results of similar papers. To do so, the following papers can be used:
a. Liao, Z. (2016). Temporal cognition, environmental innovation, and the competitive advantage of enterprises. Journal of cleaner production, 135, 1045-1053.
b. Liao, Z. (2016). Temporal cognition, environmental innovation, and the competitive advantage of enterprises. Journal of cleaner production, 135, 1045-1053.
c. Skordoulis, M., Ntanos, S., Kyriakopoulos, G. L., Arabatzis, G., Galatsidas, S., & Chalikias, M. (2020). Environmental innovation, open innovation dynamics and competitive advantage of medium and large-sized firms. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 6(4), 195.
d. Forsman, H. (2013). Environmental innovations as a source of competitive advantage or vice versa?. Business Strategy and the Environment, 22(5), 306-320.
e. Li, Y. (2014). Environmental innovation practices and performance: moderating effect of resource commitment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 66, 450-458.
f. Wang, C. H. (2019). How organizational green culture influences green performance and competitive advantage: The mediating role of green innovation. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management.
2) Concerning the paper’s literature, the Oslo manual must be presented and explained since it is used by the authors as a tool to examine the selected firms.
3) The paper’s research hypotheses is preferred to be added below the relevant theory or to be clearly developed in a new “research framework” section. Moreover, the way they are referred must be changed. For example:
a. H1: The importance of business strategies to innovative firms is different between the countries
b. H2: The firms’ common features do not play a significant role in classifying firms
4) The statistical methods used must be explained and supported.
5) The authors must add a more detailed analysis concerning the future research areas.
