Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper, employing the BWM as an MCDM method, scrutinizes and assesses barriers affecting sustainable supply chain management in SMEs. It delves into a crucial theme, specifically investigating obstacles impeding the adoption of SSCM in SMEs, with a focus on the perspective within the service sectors.

-The theoretical analysis presented is thorough, comprehensive, and accurate. The authors have included all intermediate derivations, ensuring readers can effortlessly follow the theoretical method.

-The introduction section is well written according to the problem characteristic. However, there is missing discussion about choosing the proper MCDA method (BWM).
-In order to enhance clarity, the authors should incorporate figures to vividly illustrate their results.
-It is imperative that the limitations of their study be explicitly addressed in the conclusion section for a more comprehensive understanding.
- The paper should include a discussion on managerial implications, which is currently absent from the analysis.

 

Author Response

Reviewer 1

The paper, employing the BWM as an MCDM method, scrutinizes and assesses barriers affecting sustainable supply chain management in SMEs. It delves into a crucial theme, specifically investigating obstacles impeding the adoption of SSCM in SMEs, with a focus on the perspective within the service sectors.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment and overall evaluation.

 

1. The theoretical analysis presented is thorough, comprehensive, and accurate. The authors have included all intermediate derivations, ensuring readers can effortlessly follow the theoretical method.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment.

 

2. The introduction section is well written according to the problem characteristic. However, there is missing discussion about choosing the proper MCDA method (BWM).

Reply:

We thank you for the comment. We have moved the first paragraph of section 3.2, where the selection of BWM is discussed, to the second to last paragraph of the introduction section in the revised manuscript and improved it.

 

3. In order to enhance clarity, the authors should incorporate figures to vividly illustrate their results.

Reply:

We thank you for the comment. In the revised manuscript, Figure 2 was introduced to illustrate the magnitude of the weight of the barriers categories’ weight, and Table 3 was amended accordingly.

 

4. It is imperative that the limitations of their study be explicitly addressed in the conclusion section for a more comprehensive understanding.

Reply:

We thank you for the comment. The study's limitations were added at the end of the section “6. Conclusions” of the revised manuscript.

 

5. The paper should include a discussion on managerial implications, which is currently absent from the analysis.

Reply:

Thank you for your comment. However, we respectfully disagree. The section “5. Discussion” already deals with the managerial implications (renamed “5. Discussion and managerial implication” in the revised manuscript). Moreover, in the section “6. Conclusions”, this issue is also addressed:

“Twenty-four strategies reported in the literature can help overcome the SSCM barriers, particularly the 15 key barriers prioritized. If SMEs implement 8.3% of the considered strategies — specifically, working towards the development of collaboration capacities and skills within the organization and between external organizations and institutions through the exchange of technology, joint training of employees and collaborative development of new sustainable technologies, coupled with striving to implement production and packaging solutions that promote reduction, reuse or recycling of materials — they can potentially overcome 60% of the key barriers identified.”

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper proposed constitutes a comprehensive approach in identifying and categorizing barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).  It provides a thorough insight into the challenges faced by these businesses. However, several perspectives can be considered:

1. It should be taken into account that the literature review conducted does not consider any keywords that could link it to SMEs. This may involve bias, as the barriers depending on the size and complexity of the SCs may reveal important differences (in light of a SWOT analysis, for instance). At the very least, the authors should make some comment or filter for the acquisition of the 80 barriers listed.

2. In addition, while the study identifies a broad range of barriers across various categories, the applicability of these findings might vary significantly depending on the industry, geographic location, and size of the SMEs. The diversity within SMEs suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be entirely practical. Tailored strategies might be necessary to address specific challenges in different contexts.

3. The study emphasizes economic and financial barriers as the primary obstacles. While these are undoubtedly crucial, this focus might overshadow other equally important factors like technological and social barriers, which can be critical in certain industries or regions. 

4. The selection of experts and their backgrounds can significantly influence the study's outcomes. If the experts predominantly come from a specific sector or have similar experiences, their perspectives might introduce bias (Including a more diverse range of experts from various industries and backgrounds could enhance the comprehensiveness of the findings).

5. The use of the best-worst method for prioritizing barriers offers a structured approach, but it may oversimplify the complexities involved in evaluating and addressing these challenges.

6. While the study does well to identify barriers, there is less emphasis on concrete strategies for overcoming these challenges. Future research could benefit from focusing on actionable and concrete strategies tailored to the unique needs and capacities of SMEs.

In conclusion, while the study provides valuable insights into the barriers faced by SMEs in implementing SSCM, more in-deep approaches that consider the diverse nature of the enterprises and balance the focus across different types of barriers could enhance its applicability and effectiveness.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The paper proposed constitutes a comprehensive approach in identifying and categorizing barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It provides a thorough insight into the challenges faced by these businesses.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment and overall evaluation.

 

However, several perspectives can be considered:

1. It should be taken into account that the literature review conducted does not consider any keywords that could link it to SMEs. This may involve bias, as the barriers depending on the size and complexity of the SCs may reveal important differences (in light of a SWOT analysis, for instance). At the very least, the authors should make some comment or filter for the acquisition of the 80 barriers listed.

Reply:

Thank you for your comments. In the section “2.4. Sustainable Supply Chain Management Barriers” of the revised manuscript, we elaborate on how the list of 80 barriers and their classification into the nine considered categories resulted from an in-depth analysis of 94 articles from the literature. In the revised manuscript, it is mentioned:

“The 94 articles selected for an in-depth literature analysis revealed that some authors present barrier compilations without specifying their categories [66-69]. However, the in-depth analysis made it possible to compile an exhaustive list of 80 barriers to SSCM adoption and classify them into nine categories (see Table 1).”

The set of 94 articles reviewed resulted from the search in the Scopus and Web of Science databases as explained in section “2. Literature Review”, where it is mentioned, in the revised manuscript, that:

“This section describes the SSCM and highlights the barriers to its implementation. Relevant literature was searched in Scopus and Web of Science databases with a combination of the following keywords: “Sustainable supply chain management”, “Sustainability”, “Supply chain”, “Barriers,” and “Challenges”. After screening the abstracts, 94 articles were selected for review in order to shed light on the barriers to SSCM adoption, considering their relevance to the topic under study.”

Since reporting the results from the in-depth analysis of the literature is not the primary focus of this paper, we have opted not to include the full list of articles. Nevertheless, we are available to provide the list of the 94 reviewed articles upon request.

Regarding the adequacy of barriers for SMEs, in the study, we rely on experts to select those they trust most suitable for SSCM adoption by SMEs, as stated in section 4.2 of the revised manuscript. Possible bias resulting from experts' choices is mentioned as a study limitation in section “6. Conclusions”.

 

2. In addition, while the study identifies a broad range of barriers across various categories, the applicability of these findings might vary significantly depending on the industry, geographic location, and size of the SMEs. The diversity within SMEs suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be entirely practical. Tailored strategies might be necessary to address specific challenges in different contexts.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. We recognize that the need for tailored strategies due to differences in SMEs is a study limitation. As such, it was added to the study limitations in section “6. Conclusions”.

 

3. The study emphasizes economic and financial barriers as the primary obstacles. While these are undoubtedly crucial, this focus might overshadow other equally important factors like technological and social barriers, which can be critical in certain industries or regions.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. The manuscript emphasizes the economic and financial barriers as the primary obstacles to SSCM adoption by SMEs because they represent five of the 15 top barriers, while technological only represent two barriers and social and cultural barriers one. The only category not present in the 15 top barriers is the barriers related to suppliers; however, in the section “Discussion and managerial implications”, in the revised manuscript, it is mentioned:

“While none of the Supplier category barriers rank among the 15 most important barriers (see Table 4), having a reward system for suppliers can help promote the use of sustainable, or sustainably produced, products. This approach also helps in skill development and performance enhancement, potentially leading to a growth in the number of sustainable suppliers [90; 91].”

 

4. The selection of experts and their backgrounds can significantly influence the study's outcomes. If the experts predominantly come from a specific sector or have similar experiences, their perspectives might introduce bias (Including a more diverse range of experts from various industries and backgrounds could enhance the comprehensiveness of the findings).

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. We acknowledge that there is possible bias in the study. The composition of the focus group of experts privileged their functions and positions in organizations to the detriment of the sector in which they worked. However, with the exception of the process engineers, all the other experts have more than ten years of experience and worked in more than one sector. In the revised manuscript, the characterization of the group of experts was enhanced in the section “3.1. Focus Group”, and in section “6. Conclusions”, the possible bias due to the composition of the group of experts was added to the study's limitations.

 

5. The use of the best-worst method for prioritizing barriers offers a structured approach, but it may oversimplify the complexities involved in evaluating and addressing these challenges.

Reply:

Thank you for your comment. We acknowledge the concern of “oversimplification of the BWM”. However, due to the efficacy of the BWM in reducing the number of pairwise comparisons and its acceptable performance in preserving consistency among judgments, it has been preferred by many researchers, and many studies that adopted the BWM have seen the light of day over the past years. To account for this concern, it was added in the revised manuscript (second to last paragraph of the section “1. Introduction”): “Developed by Jafar Rezaei [19], the BWM is a popular and efficient MCDM that, in the present study, is applied to prioritize the barriers to SSCM. This method compares pairs of criteria (in the present study, barriers, and their categories) to determine their weights. BWM has the advantage over other commonly used MCDM approaches, namely Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) methods, because it requires a relatively smaller number of pairwise comparisons for the same number of criteria while maintaining acceptable levels of consistency between judgments and presenting reliable results [19; 20]. Moreover, many researchers have preferred it, and similar studies that adopted the BWM have seen the light of day in recent years [21-23].”

Nevertheless, this issue was also added to the study limitations in section “6. Conclusions”.

 

6. While the study does well to identify barriers, there is less emphasis on concrete strategies for overcoming these challenges. Future research could benefit from focusing on actionable and concrete strategies tailored to the unique needs and capacities of SMEs.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. As stated in the manuscript, “This study aims to identify and prioritize the critical barriers to better understanding the topic and improving the ability to implement SSCM successfully in SMEs” applying a practical and efficient methodological approach. Strategies to mitigate these barriers are derived from the literature but adapted for SMEs by FG_2 experts, which we consider acceptable. However,  as stated in the revised manuscript (at the end of section “6. Conclusions”):

“Furthermore, the BWM could be complemented in future methodological developments by the combined approach of ISM and matrix Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication (MICMAC) analysis. This approach will allow combining the barriers’ interrelationships and hierarchal structure (resulting from the ISM model) with their driving and dependence powers (resulting from the MICMAC analysis), allowing for more concrete and tailored, and therefore more effective, strategies to mitigate the barriers to the adoption of SSCM by the SMEs.”

 

7. In conclusion, while the study provides valuable insights into the barriers faced by SMEs in implementing SSCM, more in-deep approaches that consider the diverse nature of the enterprises and balance the focus across different types of barriers could enhance its applicability and effectiveness.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. We consider that the issues associated with this comment have already been adequately dealt with in previous responses.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Paper Title: Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management in SMEs: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

The present research identifies the key barriers and strategies for overcoming them in SMEs. Researchers identified 80 barriers under 9 categories: technological, economic and financial, supplier, information, market and networking, human resources, social and cultural, regulatory and institutional, and organizational barriers. Later on, they formed a focus group having 8 experts to discuss the 55 pertinent barriers and prioritized them using the Best-Worst Method (BWM). The findings from this study highlight economic and financial barriers as the foremost challenges to the implementation of SSCM, mainly due to the lack of funding and capital to make changes in activities to include sustainability.

 General comments:

 1)      The title of the manuscript may be changed to: “Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach’ to avoid abbreviations in the title. This suggestion is not mandatory.

2)      Please refer to line nos. 309 to 311: “Before implementing the BWM, ….. facilitate prioritization.” Factors are reduced as per their degree of applicability to the intended goal and not for facilitating prioritization. Hence, may be modified accordingly.

3)      Please refer to line nos. 323 and 324: “After reducing the number of barriers, the next step was prioritizing and classifying the 55 barriers presented in Table 2 using BWM.” How classification is carried out by BWM is unclear.

4)      Please refer to line nos. 325 and 326: “In Step 1, the BWM was applied separately to each set of barriers in each category, resulting in the respective weights (within the category).” More information may be provided to validate its accuracy, for instance, how many experts were involved in decision-making? How was the decision matrix validated? How was the consistency of DM checked/maintained?

5)      Please refer to line nos. 349 to 351: To limit the burden of this task, the experts considered only the 15 top barriers, which they deemed fundamental to hindering the implementation and improvement of SSCM in SMEs.” limit the burden of this task” cannot be the reason for limiting barrier size.

6)      Please refer to line nos. 352 to 354: “A set of 24 different strategies, grounded in the literature, was adapted and improved by the experts to support and guide decision-makers in SMEs in enhancing sustainability in the supply chain, as presented in Table 5.” Were the experts and decision-makers different?  

7)      Please refer to lines nos:247-248: “In the present study, eight experts from SMEs have participated in two FGs (FG_1 and FG_2),”  Are they the same as referred to in 352-354?

8)      Please refer to lines nos:329-330: “Steps 1 and 2 were supported by the experts' judgments during the second part of the FG discussion.’ Are they the same as referred to in 352-354?

9)      Please refer to lines nos:347-248: “The experts in the FG_2 were requested to adapt and improve a set of strategies based on the literature to implement SSCM in SMEs’ Were the experts involved in FG_1 and FG_2 same or different?

10)  Please refer to: “Table 6 which links the 24 strategies to the 15 key barriers,’ The process of linking barriers with respective strategies is unclear. Who derived this to help decision-makers in the SSCM implementation process.”

11)  Please refer to line 532: The literature review identified 80 barriers to the implementation of SSCM,”  How authors can justify the application of 15 barriers and neglecting 82% of the barriers out of a group of 80.

12)  Authors may provide some limitations encountered during the research process and provide some concrete future scope

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript has several typos and grammatical mistakes hence careful editing is needed. 

1)         The paper is organized as follows. Should be The paper is organized as follows:

2)         ‘This, in turn, has led organizations to understand better’ should be ‘This, in turn, has led organizations to better understand….

3)         “from which 55 were considered relevant for analysis. With the help of the BWM” should be “of which 55 were considered relevant for analysis. With the help of the BWM”

4)         “While none of the Supplier barriers rank …” should be “While none of the supplier barriers rank …”

5)         “..benefit of sustainable products [12].” should be “..benefits of sustainable products [12].”

6)         “The barriers that present the greatest challenge are Economic and Financial barriers,’ should be “The barriers that present the greatest challenge are Eeconomic and financial barriers,’

7)         “…technologies , coupled with striving to implement..” should be “…technologies, coupled with striving to implement..” 

8)  “..geographical/economic…” should be “..geographical and economic…”

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Paper Title: Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management in SMEs: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

The present research identifies the key barriers and strategies for overcoming them in SMEs. Researchers identified 80 barriers under 9 categories: technological, economic and financial, supplier, information, market and networking, human resources, social and cultural, regulatory and institutional, and organizational barriers. Later on, they formed a focus group having 8 experts to discuss the 55 pertinent barriers and prioritized them using the Best-Worst Method (BWM). The findings from this study highlight economic and financial barriers as the foremost challenges to the implementation of SSCM, mainly due to the lack of funding and capital to make changes in activities to include sustainability.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment and overall evaluation.

 

General comments:

1. The title of the manuscript may be changed to: “Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach’ to avoid abbreviations in the title. This suggestion is not mandatory.

Reply:

Thank you for the suggestion. The abbreviation SMEs was substituted by “Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises” in the title of the revised manuscript.

 

2. Please refer to line nos. 309 to 311: “Before implementing the BWM, ….. facilitate prioritization.” Factors are reduced as per their degree of applicability to the intended goal and not for facilitating prioritization. Hence, may be modified accordingly.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. In the revised manuscript, the issue was clarified.

 

3. Please refer to line nos. 323 and 324: “After reducing the number of barriers, the next step was prioritizing and classifying the 55 barriers presented in Table 2 using BWM.” How classification is carried out by BWM is unclear.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. The word “classifying” was removed from the sentence in the revised manuscript.

 

4. Please refer to line nos. 325 and 326: “In Step 1, the BWM was applied separately to each set of barriers in each category, resulting in the respective weights (within the category).” More information may be provided to validate its accuracy, for instance, how many experts were involved in decision-making? How was the decision matrix validated? How was the consistency of DM checked/maintained?

Reply:

Thank you for your comments. In section “3.1. Focus Group” of the revised manuscript, the presentation of the focus group's mode of operation, the experts, and the objectives of each of the two focus group discussions carried out were clarified.

We acknowledge the concerns related to” decision matrix validation” and the “consistency” of the experts' judgments. However, due to the efficacy of the BWM in reducing the number of pairwise comparisons and its acceptable performance in preserving consistency among judgments, it has been preferred by many researchers, and many studies that adopted the BWM have seen the light of day over the past years. To account for these concerns, it was added in the revised manuscript (second to last paragraph of the section “1. Introduction”): “BWM has the advantage over other commonly used MCDM approaches, namely Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) methods, because it requires a relatively smaller number of pairwise comparisons for the same number of criteria while maintaining acceptable levels of consistency between judgments and presenting reliable results [19; 20]. Moreover, many researchers have preferred it, and similar studies that adopted the BWM have seen the light of day in recent years [21-23].”

Nevertheless, these issues were also added to the study limitations in section “6. Conclusions”.

 

5. Please refer to line nos. 349 to 351: To limit the burden of this task, the experts considered only the 15 top barriers, which they deemed fundamental to hindering the implementation and improvement of SSCM in SMEs.” limit the burden of this task” cannot be the reason for limiting barrier size.

Reply:

Thank you for your comment, and acknowledge your concerns. However, in similar studies, even when using other methodologies, there is always an effort to limit the scope of the analysis. Otherwise, there would be no justification for prioritizing the barriers. Moreover, as stated in the manuscript, “This study aims to identify and prioritize the critical barriers to better understanding the topic and improving the ability to implement SSCM successfully in SMEs” applying a practical and efficient methodological approach.

However, in future developments, the methodological approach can include, for example, Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and MICMAC analysis to uncover the hierarchical relationships between barriers and, thus, facilitate the development of mitigation strategies, as stated in the revised manuscript (at the end of section “6).

 

6. Please refer to line nos. 352 to 354: “A set of 24 different strategies, grounded in the literature, was adapted and improved by the experts to support and guide decision-makers in SMEs in enhancing sustainability in the supply chain, as presented in Table 5.” Were the experts and decision-makers different?

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. In the revised manuscript, the word “decision-makers “was eliminated to avoid misunderstanding, and the mentioned sentence was rewritten as: “The experts adapted and improved a set of 24 different strategies, grounded in the literature, to support and guide SMEs in enhancing sustainability in the supply chain, as presented in Table 5.”

 

7. Please refer to lines nos:247-248: “In the present study, eight experts from SMEs have participated in two FGs (FG_1 and FG_2),” Are they the same as referred to in 352-354?

Reply:

Thank you for the issue. Yes, the experts were the same. Please see section “3.1. Focus Group” in the revised manuscript.

8. Please refer to lines nos:329-330: “Steps 1 and 2 were supported by the experts' judgments during the second part of the FG discussion.’ Are they the same as referred to in 352-354?

Reply:

Thank you for the question. Yes, the experts are the same. As mentioned in section “3.1. Focus Group” in the revised manuscript, lines 329-330 refer to the second part of FG_1, and lines 352-354 refer to FG_2. Moreover, Figure 1 was also improved to clarify the role of the experts and the focus group discussion (FG_1 and FG_2).

 

9. Please refer to lines nos:347-248: “The experts in the FG_2 were requested to adapt and improve a set of strategies based on the literature to implement SSCM in SMEs’ Were the experts involved in FG_1 and FG_2 same or different?

Reply:

Thank you for the question. Yes, the group of experts is the same in FG_1 and FG_2. Please see the reply to the previous point.

 

10. Please refer to: “Table 6 which links the 24 strategies to the 15 key barriers,’ The process of linking barriers with respective strategies is unclear. Who derived this to help decision-makers in the SSCM implementation process.”

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. The word “decision-makers “was eliminated from the revised manuscript to avoid misunderstanding, and the “process of linking barriers with respective strategies” was clarified:

“Finally, the experts in FG_2 were asked to link the 24 strategies to the 15 key barriers, thus highlighting the strategies with the greatest potential to mitigate barriers to the adoption of SSCM by SMEs (Table 6).”

 

11. Please refer to line 532: The literature review identified 80 barriers to the implementation of SSCM,” How authors can justify the application of 15 barriers and neglecting 82% of the barriers out of a group of 80.

Reply:

Thank you for the question. In the section “4.2. Selection of the relevant barriers to SSCM in SMEs” of the revised manuscript, it is stated that:

“Before implementing the BWM, selecting the barriers relevant to SSCM adoption by SMEs from Table S1 was necessary. The selection process was also crucial to reducing the number of barriers due to the limitations of the chosen method, the BWM, for pairwise comparisons. Therefore, the selection process aimed to confine each category of barriers to a maximum of 9, ensuring no constraints when applying the method [19]”.

So, the 80 barriers to the implementation of SSCM identified through the literature review were analyzed by the experts, who considered that only 55 of these were applicable to the context of SMEs. After that, the 55 barriers were prioritized using the  BWM in section 4.3. Finally, in the section 4.4 of the revised manuscript:

“The experts in the FG_2 were requested to adapt and improve a set of strategies based on the literature to implement SSCM in SMEs (Stage IV of the research methodology, Figure 1). For this task, the experts considered only the 15 top barriers, which they deemed fundamental to hindering the implementation and improvement of SSCM in SMEs. This has helped limit the burden on experts in this task.”

 

12. Authors may provide some limitations encountered during the research process and provide some concrete future scope

Reply:

Thank you for the recommendation. In the revised version of the manuscript, limitations and future developments to the methodological approach were added to the section “6. Conclusions”.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language. The manuscript has several typos and grammatical mistakes hence careful editing is needed. 

1. The paper is organized as follows. Should be The paper is organized as follows:
2. ‘This, in turn, has led organizations to understand better’ should be ‘This, in turn, has led organizations to better understand…
3. “from which 55 were considered relevant for analysis. With the help of the BWM” should be “of which 55 were considered relevant for analysis. With the help of the BWM”
4. “While none of the Supplier barriers rank …” should be “While none of the supplier barriers rank …”
5. “..benefit of sustainable products [12].” should be “..benefits of sustainable products [12].”
6. “The barriers that present the greatest challenge are Economic and Financial barriers,’ should be “The barriers that present the greatest challenge are Economic and financial barriers,’
7. “…technologies, coupled with striving to implement..” should be “…technologies, coupled with striving to implement..” 
8. “..geographical/economic…” should be “..geographical and economic…”

Reply:

Thank you for the remark on the quality of the English Language. All typos and grammatical errors mentioned were corrected in the revised manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you, I suggest to accept this paper in current form

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Thank you, I suggest to accept this paper in current form.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you very much for the revised manuscript.

(a)   The comment concerning Focus Groups 1 and 2 was resolved by authors stating that they were the same expert, so why authors name them FG_1 and FG_2 is unclear. Further, it creates confusion for readers, hence it may be properly resolved.

(b)   Please refer to: “In the present study, eight experts from SMEs have participated ….” How the feedback from these experts was aggregated is still unclear in the stated methodology and results.

(c)   Please refer to earlier comment no.10:

Please refer to: “Table 6 which links the 24 strategies to the 15 key barriers,’ The process of linking barriers with respective strategies is unclear. Who derived this to help decision-makers in the SSCM implementation process.”

Thank you for changing DM to FG. In fact, more clarity of linking process was asked. Hence, the process of linking barriers with respective strategies may be clarified. The basis of linking, what process was followed to link? How did the author ensure the accuracy of linking etc.?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Thanks for updating the English errors.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

1. The comment concerning Focus Groups 1 and 2 was resolved by authors stating that they were the same expert, so why authors name them FG_1 and FG_2 is unclear. Further, it creates confusion for readers, hence it may be properly resolved.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. We acknowledge that using the acronyms FG_1 and FG_2 may give way to the same confusion. In fact, only one group of experts participated in two distinct focus group discussions (FGD_1 and FGD_2). The Manuscript was modified accordingly.

 

2. Please refer to: “In the present study, eight experts from SMEs have participated ….” How the feedback from these experts was aggregated is still unclear in the stated methodology and results.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. Acknowledging some doubts about how the FGDs were operationalized, in the revised manuscript, the section “3.1. Focus Group Discussion” was extended and, hopefully, clarified:

“The moderator of the FGD, one of the authors, assisted in reaching consensus, stimulated discussion, and ensured that the discussion progressed from general to specific topics to encourage sincerity and bias reduction [76]. By questioning and exchanging comments on each expert’s points of view and experiences, the moderator explored their experiences and knowledge to examine what they think, how they think, and why. All experts had equal weight in decision-making. Nevertheless, when a consensus is not reached, “the majority rules”.”

 

3. Please refer to earlier comment no.10:

Please refer to: “Table 6 which links the 24 strategies to the 15 key barriers,’ The process of linking barriers with respective strategies is unclear. Who derived this to help decision-makers in the SSCM implementation process.”

Thank you for changing DM to FG. In fact, more clarity of linking process was asked. Hence, the process of linking barriers with respective strategies may be clarified. The basis of linking, what process was followed to link? How did the author ensure the accuracy of linking etc.??

 

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. Please consider the reply to the previous points and the section “3.1 Focus Group Discussion” of the manuscript. Furthermore, to improve the clarity of the ”process of linking barriers with respective strategies and the accuracy of linking… “, changes were made in the revised manuscript, section 4.2:

“The experts in the FGD_2 were requested to adapt and improve a set of strategies based on the literature to support and guide SMEs in enhancing SSCM (Stage IV of the research methodology, Figure 1). For this task, the experts considered only the 15 top barriers, which they deemed key to hindering the implementation and improvement of SSCM in SMEs. This has helped limit the burden on experts in this task. These barriers are presented in Table 4, ranked in decreasing order of importance for mitigation."

And,

“Finally, experts in the FGD_2 were asked to indicate which of the 24 strategies could mitigate each of the 15 barriers. The results are presented in Table 6”

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Paper Title: Overcoming Barriers to Sustainable Supply Chain Management in SMEs: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach

The Best-Worst Method (BWM) is a quantitative multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method involving a pairwise comparison to derive the weight within the decision consistency. The focused group discussion is usually employed for qualitative decision-making.

(a)   Please refer to;"By questioning and exchanging comments on each expert’s points of view and experiences, the moderator explored their experiences and knowledge to examine what they think, how they think, and why”.

-It is difficult to guess the quantitative number, whatever may be the experience/expertise level of the moderator.

(b)   The author may provide a few references to the FGD methodology used in quantitative aggregation.

(c)   They may also provide the quantitative procedure they adopted to deduce/aggregation of all experts out of FGD_1 and FGD_2 as supplementary files.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The past English-related comments have been used to modify the present version of the manuscript.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

The Best-Worst Method (BWM) is a quantitative multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method involving a pairwise comparison to derive the weight within the decision consistency. The focused group discussion is usually employed for qualitative decision-making.

(a)     Please refer to;"By questioning and exchanging comments on each expert’s points of view and experiences, the moderator explored their experiences and knowledge to examine what they think, how they think, and why”.

-It is difficult to guess the quantitative number, whatever may be the experience/expertise level of the moderator.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. We could not agree more; the output of the BWM is quantitative (in this case, the “weight” of each barrier). However, the inputs of the method are the qualitative judgments/opinions of the experts (the pairwise comparison of the relative importance of the barriers) in the FGD using a qualitative scale of 1 to 9 (reference [77]). In the revised manuscript, section 3.2., the issue was clarified:

 

“3. Determine the preference or intensity of importance of the best criterion over all the other criteria based on a comparison scale. This scale consists of “verbal judgments ranging from equal to extreme (equal, moderately more, strongly more, very strongly more, extremely more) corresponding to the verbal judgments are the numerical judgments (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and compromises between these values” [77].”

 

Concerning the role of the moderator, his primary aim was to reach informed consensuses of the judgments/opinions of the group on, for example, the intensity of importance of the “best” barrier over all the other barriers based on a 1 to 9 scale. First, the moderator asked the experts what “they think, how they think, and why?”. Then, after discussion, if the consensus was not reached, which was often, the moderator would ask the experts in disagreement how they support their “judgment/opinion” against the other “judgments/opinions” and vice-versa (in several iterations) until the group reached a consensus (common “judgments/opinions”), or at least a significant majority. To enhance the importance of the moderator, in section 3.1 of the revised manuscript, the following sentence was improved”:

 

“The FGD moderator was one of the authors with knowledge and experience in SSCM. His role was to assist the experts in reaching a consensus by stimulating discussion and ensuring that the discussion progressed from general to specific topics to encourage sincerity and bias reduction [76]. By questioning and exchanging comments on each expert’s points of view and experiences, the moderator explored their experiences and knowledge to examine what they think, how they think, and why.”

 

(b)     The author may provide a few references to the FGD methodology used in quantitative aggregation.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. As the previous reply mentioned, the aggregation is qualitative, not qualitative.

 

 (c)  They may also provide the quantitative procedure they adopted to deduce/aggregation of all experts out of FGD_1 and FGD_2 as supplementary files.

Reply:

Thank you for the comment. As the previous reply mentioned, the aggregation is qualitative, not qualitative.

 

.