Organizational Risk Prioritization Using DEMATEL and AHP towards Sustainability
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPaper Title: Prioritization of organizational risks with a focus on sustainability through AHP+DEMATEL mathematical models
The present research attempts to categorize the organizational risks by focusing on sustainability, using a case. Five organizational risks (geopolitical, economic, social, techno-logical and environmental) using specialized surveys. DEMATEL and AHP methodologies have been applied to prioritize risks and sub-risks of considered risk factors. DEMATEL provides the prioritization as economic, social, geopolitical, environmental and technological. Further, AHP was used in prioritization for each type of risk as Massive incidents of data fraud or theft (technological risk), Lack of ethics in the conduct of business (geopolitical risk), Low growth in industry, innovation, and infrastructure (economic risk), Chemical safety (social risk) and Water depletion (environmental risk). The sensitivity analysis was also carried out.
General comments:
1) The title may be suitably modified: “Organizational risk prioritization using DEMATEL and AHP towards sustainability, or on similar lines.
2) Please refer to “Different researchers have …. (DEMATEL).’ May be suitably modified to include significant advantages for the combined usage.
3) The introduction may be fine-tuned to exclude a description of the research methodologies.
4) Please refer to line no. 209: Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) may be changed to DEMATEL since it has already been defined in line no.84. Similarly, “ Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)’.
5) The research methodology has been documented in various places i.e. in the Introduction, research methodology, and panel of experts, thus it sounds repetitive. The panel of experts ....in lines numbers 108, 282. Similarly, 1AK (One Click Survey) is in lines no.136 and 296.
6) How the aggregation of feedback from a panel of experts consisting of 79 experts (Refer Table 2) is carried out.
7) Authors may clarify about the experts in AHP. Were they the same as mentioned in Table 2 or different?
8) The results shown in Table 13 Economic risk priority matrix...to Table 17 may be included in Tables 8 to 12. Separate tables may be avoided.
9) The decision consistency results may also be provided for AHP comparison for each table.
10) The results provided in Table 18 as an Average social comparison matrix look sufficient, hence figures from 6 to 10 become redundant.
11) How Figures 11 to 15 of various Bar charts depicting variation in sub-risks are derived is unclear.
12) Please refer to lines 214 to 219: “In this research, it is expected to …..it possible to transform this qualitative information into triangular fuzzy numbers and then into crisp values.” this looks confusing. There are no fuzzy TFNs used in the manuscript.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe manuscript has several typos and grammatical mistakes, hence careful editing is needed.
1) Please refer to line no. 39: “A Management System…..” should be “A management system…..”.
2) Please refer to line no. 143: “…on the Phyton programming language.” should be “…on the Python programming language.”
3) Please refer to line no. 176: “…with the opinion of experts.” should be “…with the opinions of experts.”
4) Please refer to line no. 176: “…criteria with higher critically, this…” should be “…criteria with higher criticality; this….”.
5) There are very long sentences used, which run into 3–5 lines.
6) Several phrases/ names are written in capital letters.
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 1".
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper presents a prioritization of organizational sustainability-related risk categories and sub-categories. The prioritization was performed based on data provided by subject-matter experts and processed using the DEMATEL and AHP methods. The data processing part is explained in details and seems sound, although the authors could have considered more relevant MCDM approaches such as MACBETH/Myriad. This being said, the semantics of the results are, at best, fuzzy, and at worst, highly disputable.
Globally, I am puzzled by the fuzzy terminology used in the paper. What is presented as “organizational risks and sub-risks with a focus on sustainability” are risk categories, not risks. This is more or less clearly stated in the sentence “Proposing the risk categories with their associated sub-risks shown in Figures 2 and 3.” I wrote “more or less” because in fact the authors should write “…with their associated sub-risk categories shown in Figures 2 and 3.” The text is overall sadly more ambiguous, e.g., “It is important to note that the correlation of risks shown in Figure 2 starts with the identification of the most common risks…” The authors should make a clear distinction between risks and risk categories and / or sub-categories. Risks need to be identified for a particular case / context, and assessed in terms of severity and likelihood. By contrast with risk categories, risks cannot be found in catalogues.
The next issue relates to the panel of experts. The size of the panel is significant, and composed of senior employees, which is appropriate for the job. However, there is a mix of experts from different sectors. The authors state Services, Auditing and Consulting Firms, Finance, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing, etc. How many sectors are hidden behind this “etc.”? I guess that these sectors have different views and constraints with respect to sustainability-related risk categories. I fail to understand the meaning of global results, mixing feedback from all those sectors. On the other hand, if the results were to be given per sector, would the size of the sector-specific panels still be sufficient?
The next issue relates again to vocabulary. In §4, the authors wrote that “the diagram describing the influence and relevance of the risks analyzed shows as a result that they should be prioritized in the following order:… “. I fail to understand what “priority” means here (and more generally in the whole paper): e.g., is it a priority of risk identification in this risk category, or of risk treatment (supposing that some effective risks have been previously identified)? I also fail to understand why the influence and relevance criteria as provided by the experts should define the priority (?) of these risk categories. Typically, priority of treatment may be decided by costs, delays, political, legal, availability of resources or competencies, and / or quick wins reasons, amongst other reasons, which I fail to map directly to the sole two criteria discussed in the paper.
As a last general comment, I am also confused by the usage of “controls” in the paper. First, I do not understand the concept of controls related to risk categories. It would be OK with respect to risks, but it is not the case here. Moreover, in the paper, the term “controls” is twice associated / coupled with the term “monitoring”, restricting its scope to “monitoring controls”. Why this focus on “monitoring controls”? Is it a way of identifying the risks of a specific risk category? If yes, then the term “monitoring control” probably does not have the same meaning as the classical risk detection controls. The authors should explain what they mean with controls when they apply to risk categories, rather than risks.
The following are more focused comments on specific parts of the paper.
Table 4: I did not understand why the Environmental risk category has no influence on any of the other risk categories (last line), and why this matrix does not show zeros on the diagonal. Also, it would have been good to justify the values in this table, i.e., understand why and how the experts provided such data.
Section §3.3 is uselessly detailed in terms of calculations. The ref. to [37] is sufficient to explain the maths. The results could be given directly. The authors should reduce the length of this section, and rather elaborate on the operational, governance and business significance of the results in section §4.
Same comment for section §3.4. This is purely a mathematical approach. Where is the semantics of the data?
It is OK if section §3 focuses essentially on the method and the underlining maths. However, even section §4 fails to talk to an operational audience. I believe that section §4 should not to recall that the weightings were obtained with the DEMATEL method or via the AHP model (that was already extensively presented in the previous sections). Section §4 should explain what is the significance of these weightings, and what organisations can do/decide with these results.
Figure 5 is not explained. The relevance of the quadrants should be explained.
The conclusions of the sensitivity analysis (section §4.1) are confusing and seem to contradict themselves: “The results of the sensitivity analysis indicate that variations in the criteria comparison matrices have limited impact on the selection of priorities … Negative variations of 0% to 70% in the AHP model sensitivity analysis indicate that changes in the input values have had a significant impact on the model results and have led to significant negative changes in the relative priorities of the criteria”. Please clarify.
There is a section §4.1 but no section §4.2. Can you restructure in a more consistent way?
Comments on the Quality of English Language· Incorrect phrasing: “Sustainability assessment is a topic that has taken great boom its objective is to provide 74 decision makers with a comprehensive assessment of sustainability”
· multi-criteria methodologies à multi-criteria methods ; The proposed methodology à The proposed method; 2. Proposed methodology à 2. Methodology. Methodology is the study/science of methods: terms are not synonymous. Check and correct where appropriate.
· “…evaluation and prioritization of risks, this allows them…” à “…evaluation and prioritization of risks; this allows them…”
· “…this allows them to address them…” à “…this allows the professionals to address the risks…”
· Many sentences too long, e.g., “The profiles consulted range from CEOs, department directors and senior managers, who have different professions, postgraduate degrees and some with more than 20 years of experience in undertaking their professional activities, which generates that the opinions obtained are compiled based on their professional judgment and according to their experience in the materialization of risks in the industries in which they work.” The sentence starting by “The profiles consulted are CEOs” is 11 lines!!! Often commas are used instead of dots. Beyond 4 lines, do consider breaking down in different sentences.
· Incorrect grammar: “Proposing the risk categories with their associated sub-risks shown in Figures 2 and 3.”
· Line 353: correct: “the diagram describing influence and relevant is” à relevance ?
· Title of Table 17 is wrong, and duplicate of Table 16.
· Line 543: correct: “…which allows determining (if) the resistance to uncertainty and variations”
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the reviewer 2"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Sir,
After review of the paper titled "Prioritization of organizational risks with a focus on sustainability through AHP+DEMATEL mathematical models" which submitted to the Sustainability Journal, I think that this paper is suitable for publication in the current form.
This paper is very important and very interesting.
This paper examines a recent topics and an important subject.
This paper shows a general approach for the categorization of organizational risks with a focus on sustainability, the application of which has been shown in a particular case.
Based on the analysis of global reports such as the “Global Sustainable Development Report”, the “Enterprise Risk Management—Integrating with Strategy and Performance” and the “Global Risk Report”, five organizational risks with a focus on sustainability (geopolitical, economic, social, technological and environmental) that support the care of sustainability in organizations are characterized, taking into account a viable and equitable sense.
I think that this paper needs only a routine revisions for some grammatical mistakes.
All the best
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 3"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe Authors propose an interesting study on risk management by means of a procedure based on MCDM tools aimed at identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and controlling the interactions between organizational risk factors with a focus on sustainability issues.
The manuscript is well written and organized.
However, before considering it for publication, some improvements are needed.
In the introduction, research motivations should be elaborated more.
In the materials and methods section, the coordinated use of both MADM and MODM tools has to be clarified. Additional figures/diagrams illustrating how these tools can be used together can help the reader better understand the proposed procedure.
The quality of both Figures 3 and 5 has to be improved.
In figures 6-10, for the decimals the comma has to be replaced by the full stop (.) in accordance with international standards.
The discussion of results has to be augmented. The Authors have to elaborate more on the research findings as well as on the methodological implications of the study. In particular, with reference to the latter issue, it is important to highlight how the proposed research approach can augment knowledge in the field of risk management considering the extant literature.
Actually, in the literature several studies have proposed risk management procedures by means of MCDM tools, such as QFD, ANP, AHP, etc. For example see the following: https://doi.org/10.1080/10803548.2018.1483100; https://doi.org/10.1504/IJRS.2018.094943.
Hence, the Authors should highlight how the proposed procedure can improve research approaches in risk management compared to those studies and similar ones.
Finally, also research limitations and future work should be outlined.
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 4"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the revised version:
Please refer to previous comment no.6 as follows;
1) How the aggregation of feedback from a panel of experts consisting of 79 experts (Refer to Table 2) is carried out.
Table no.2 is updated In the new version, but the respective changes are not seen in the consecutive tables Table 5 and Table 6 etc.
2) Please refer to ‘Based on the GDM method by combining the (DEMATEL) and (AHP) models..” So far, I haven’t come across the GDM method that can combine DEMATEL and AHP. Authors may provide references for the benefit of all readers.
3) The research methodology described in Section 3.3 Application of DEMATEL still does not describe aggregation steps.
4) Similarly, AHP steps do not show any aggregation steps as well.
(5) The authors must provide a clean copy with a rebuttal.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some writing issues while modifying the manuscript version, hence careful reading is required:
(a) table may be Table
(b) 'n' must be 'n'
(c) Criteria Comparison Matrix (CR) ?
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 1"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article has been significantly improved. However, there are still some major issues, listed here by decreasing order of importance:
1) I still do not understand the practical claimed guidance that can be drawn from this article:
· Typically, on lines 237-239, it is written: “In order to carry out this process, it is necessary to recognize what the risks would be, and how they can be prioritized and, thus obtaining the controls to be established.” I do not see the link between risk category prioritization and control selection. See also comment below with respect to ISO 27005 treatment options.
· Likewise, on lines 819-820, it is written: “This provides valuable guidance for various organizations.” What guidance? In what way should the prioritization of general risk and sub-risk categories by a mix of different industries supersede the results of an ad-hoc risk assessment?
· Finally, on lines 838-840, it is written: “Overall, this strengthened methodology (sic.) adapts in a versatile way to the organizational environment, providing a comprehensive and accurate approach to identifying and efficiently managing risks in various contexts.” IMHO, definitively not. At best, the presented result can inform on the priorities set by a mix of different industries, which might (possibly) support risk identification. I wrote "possibly", because risks are essentially domain specific, and using industry-generic data to guide one's own specific risk identification process could be seen as highly disputable. In addition, risk management was barely discussed, and poorly addressed when discussed.
2) l102: Why is risk mitigation the only risk treatment option that is discussed? According to ISO 27005, there are 4 risk treatment options, and risk modification (i.e., what you call risk mitigation) is only one of them.
3) Still some numerous uses of "risk" instead of "risk category" and "methodology" instead of "method" everywhere in the text. Annoying.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe text is difficult to read with the numerous revisions. The English has been generally well improved. However, I still spotted some remaining issues, so another attentive review is required. For example:
- l111: great boom its objective
- l408: specific sub-risks and sub-risks
- l416: master's degree. Who has
- l619-621: duplicate sentence.
I did not perform an exhaustive list of issues.
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 2"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe Authors have satisfactorily improved the quality of the manuscript. Hence, in this reviewer's opinion, it can be considered for publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 4"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the updated version.
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(a) The pairwise comparison needs careful consideration while aggregation. The arithmetic average method may work well in the case of aggregation of the Likert scale.
(a)Group aggregation of pairwise comparisons using the Geometric Mean Method (GMM) is preferred over the arithmetic average method employed in the present research. Several researchers have objected because of the inaccuracy prevailing in the arithmetic mean. It normally results in unequal weight compromise during aggregation.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageAuthors have carried out the comments on the quality of English language during the revision.
Author Response
Please see the attachment "Letter to the Reviewer 1"
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
