The Relationship between Distance and Risk Perception in Multi-Tier Supply Chain: The Psychological Typhoon Eye Effect

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the good paper,  I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to review your study. I have a few thoughts that could enhance the quality of the article.
The content of the article has followed a new approach. The paper demonstrates an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cites an appropriate range of literature sources. However, the authors should add a reflection and emphasize that people more often formulate judgments and make decisions based on heuristics than on formal methods of analysis. Such informal rules, often adaptive in nature, can lead to correct assessments. We are talking here about availability heuristics, anchoring heuristics and representativeness heuristics. However, when used incorrectly, they can lead to errors. When writing about decision-making, it is also worth mentioning the influence of the decision-making framework - as a specific description of the choice, the perspective from which the choice is perceived.

In the context of H3, according to the reviewer, it is also important to notice another effect that occurs when making decisions - the belief bias effect - the phenomenon of distorting the reasoning process by prior knowledge, attitudes of values, which may lead to the recognition of incorrect conclusions. People tend to evaluate as valid those conclusions for which they can build a reasonable life model and as valid those for which they cannot.

The research methods used and the order of their application are appropriate from the point of view of the research problem and hypotheses, validity and reliability data look promising. In the part devoted to methodology, I would like to ask for an indication of the method of sample selection - specifying how the elements of the study population were selected from this population? Please only provide the source for drawings and result tables.

Thanks to the implementation of an ambitious research procedure, the authors collected interesting and rich research material, which they thoroughly analyzed. Moreover, there are clear connections between the Aims and the Summary/Conclusions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Greetings,

The paper is well written. Certain minor corrections are needed. The introduction and theoretical foundations are well written, nothing needs to be corrected. In the Construct validity and reliability selection, it is necessary to explain for the variable RPr why the AVG and Cronbach's α are small and why this variable was used further in the research. Everything else is fine with work. The authors did the results in detail and explained everything.

All the best

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The research presents an interesting perspective on supply chain risk management, which includes an analysis of the impact of distance between links on responding to the risk of supply chain disruption. The term "psychological typhoon eye" (PTE) itself is quite recent. The topic is up-to-date and novel, as no previous studies of this scope have been identified. At the same time, the beginning of the article, its theoretical part and the assumptions of the study are developed quite clearly. The problem of content clarity has been present since section 3.4. I have the impression that the authors are trying to fit a lot of analyzes at once, which causes a decrease in the clarity of the content and the successively performed research steps. I recommend improving the following issues:

The abbreviation ZTE appears in the abstract, this is most likely the name of the company, but it should be clarified.

Unify the purpose of the research, because in the abstract it is: "This paper aims to investigate the impact of distance on the perception of and response to supply chain disruption risk". In Introduction: “the primary objective of the present study is to gain insights into the perception of disruption risk among managers in a multi-tier supply chain” (line 52,53)

ZTE's roles in the supply chain should be precisely described, not only as a center of potential risks. Perhaps the role played by the subject of the epicenter may differ in the studied phenomenon.

The research questions are not exactly linked to the hypotheses, e.g.: the hypotheses consider job position level, which are not included in the research questions.

Section: Construct validity and reliability shows the results of the factor analysis. The table contains Measurement items, but there is no information about what the individual symbols mean. What was this stage of the analysis for, if later I do not see the use of these factors in further analysis. It is recommended that in table 4, in the construct column, apart from symbols, the names of the main factors should be written in words, it will be more readable.

In the results section, indicate whether further analysis was based on factors or other variables. Furthermore, it is not clear what section 4.2.1 Tier distance affect disruption risk perception refers to. Section 4.1 Descriptive analyzes - what was the purpose of this section? There is no consistency with the other sections. In lines 404-405 the authors write about the correlation between socio-demographic characteristics, firm size, psychological distance, disruption risk information quality, disruption risk perception, risk propensity, and managerial response, but the table refers only to socio-demographic characteristics. This requires clarification and greater clarity.

Justify the text

Line 549: We.. (Large letter)

I do not see any confirmation of hypothesis 4 in the text

It recommends that sociodemographic variables be supplemented with data, e.g. age of managers, etc., because it is important from the point of view of the research assumptions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf