Effects of Corporate Entrepreneurship Dimensions on Organizational Performance: Case of Small and Medium Enterprises in Holeta Town, Ethiopia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled: "Effects of Corporate Entrepreneurship Dimensions on Organizational Performance: Case of Small and Medium Enterprises in Holeta town, Ethiopia".
I would like to congratulate the authors for writing this paper. This manuscript is interesting, well-written, organised and the choices made in the research seem to be relevant.
However, for publications, this paper requires some changes/additions/ and edits, which area minor. I hope these comments and suggestions may be useful for improving your study. Good luck!
- INTRODUCTION: A greater effort is required to identify the contributions derived from this study ad the relevance of the study.
- METHODOLOGY: When was the data collected? What questionnaires were used? Who made them?
- CONCLUSIONS: Reference should be made to the authors referred to in the literature review, indicating whether the conclusions of this study are in accordance with them.
- OTHER ISSUES: It is important to improve the sources of the literature. I recommend adding new updated references.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, we thank you very much for your constructive comments and suggestions to make our study more productive. we tried to go through your comments point by point and updated our paper accordingly. kindly find the attached files which is a response to your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
- Introduction
Reviewer: The introduction should be more objective, the authors present an introduction that is closer to a literature review. They should review point 1 and 2 of the study and clarify what is the introduction of the study and what is literature review. In this way the introduction is almost not distinguished from the literature review. There is a lack of coherence between the two points of the study.
“Corporate entrepreneurship, is often mentioned as the concept of supporting workers to think and behave like entrepreneurs inside an existing organizational structure. Employees with the right vision and skills are fortified to recognize opportunities and develop ideas which lead to innovative new products, services or even new lines of business....”
Reviewer: Which author or authors say this? References are lacking.
“...Although the above problems are studied by other researchers, but no research has yet examined the main problems of SMEs and CE such as poor implementation CE strategy for SMEs, weak relationship between SMEs and CE dimension and lack of awareness by Ethiopian SMEs on the use of CE as competitive business strategy.”
Reviewer: How can you be sure that there is no research that has examined these problems? What are they basing their conclusion on? Have they consulted every database and repository in the world? That statement needs to be rectified or clarified.
“....Even most of studies on CE dimension had mainly concentrated on the western world with very little on the African context. Even as per information of the researchers, none of the study entitled effects of CE dimension on the growth of SMEs had conducted in the Ethiopian context, specifically on Holeta town. These problems were initiated the researchers to conduct the study on the effects of CE dimension on the growth of SMEs...”
Reviewer: Which studies? Which researchers?
- Materials and Methods
Reviewer: The authors need to explain the procedure and method in more detail. What staircases were used? Were staircases validated by the literature used? How did the procedure take place? What techniques were used in the collection? What criteria were used for the selection of the sample? Why did they use this methodology and not another? What previous studies support this choice?
Source of data and instruments used
Reviewer: This point is not clear. The authors should detail the instruments and scales used as well as their references.
- Conclusion
Reviewer: At this point, it would be important for the authors to be more incisive about the study contribution and originality. It is important to reinforce the existing gaps in the literature of previous studies and concretely explain which and how these gaps are answered through this study. Authors should reinforce the theoretical contribution and implication of their study, as well as the main beneficiaries. It is essential that the authors reinforce the value of their study as well as the importance of their contributions to this theme. Although the study is not representative or statistically very significant, you can add more value to your study by finding this reinforcement.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, we have great thanks for your valuable comments, suggestions and recommendations. we tried to go through point by point and updated our manuscript as per your suggestions. kindly find the attached revised section herewith.
kind regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors have made a good work. Paper has been improved since the first version.
In my opinion, paper is now ready for publication
Author Response
Dear reviewer, we thank you very much for your endorsement of our revised manuscript. stay safe!
kind regards,
the authors
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear Authors,
the revised version of the proposed article is appropriately improved and therefore I suggest accepting it.
Good luck wit hthe article!
Author Response
Dear reviewer, we thank you very much for your endorsement of our revised manuscript. stay safe!
kind regards,
the 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
- Introduction
It is important to do some literature review in the introduction for the contextualization of the study, however, in this case it ends up becoming a little extensive. The paper can gain more impact if the introduction is even more focused on the purpose of the study, the objectives and their importance for scientific knowledge and for the community. At this point, they should mention the following sections from the paper.
- Materials and Methods
At this point, it is necessary to better explain the criteria and the sample selection process. The paper has too many tables in the body of the text, the paper will be more appealing if they are placed in an attachment, especially those resulting from the estimation.
1.1. Source of data and instruments used
Authors should review nomination of titles and sub-titles throughout the paper.
It is not enough to mention that the questionnaire applied results from data source in addition to the secondary sources from manuals and company broachers. It is necessary to refer to the sources, for example, if they are using a scale adaptation or if they use an already validated scale. They must mention some of their main items in the questionnaire, for example, they can create a table with the items and their authors / reference studies.
- Discussion and Analysis
4.6 Discussions of Major Results
Authors should better reflect on the sections, namely those that are intended for the results and their discussion. I suggest that you create a single section for the presentation of results and another for discussion, or alternatively, you can create a single section for presentation and discussion of results, discussing the results as they are presented. Having several points of discussion throughout the paper does not add value to it. This part is very important in the paper, so it must be well structured, with the clearest and most objective link possible.
- Conclusion
Conclusion needs to be significantly improved. It is not enough to remember the objectives of the study, it is also necessary to mention the extent to which they have been achieved. At this point it is important to mention what previous studies contributed to this theme, what are its gaps and how this paper tries to answer or fill those gaps found in the previous literature. It is necessary to reinforce the originality of the study and mention how the business and academic community can benefit from study, that is, the importance of its results. The limitations of the study should be detailed, leaving suggestions for future
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thanks for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled: "Effects of Corporate Entrepreneurship Dimensions on Organizational Performance: Case of Small and Medium Enterprises in Holeta town, Ethiopia".
This manuscript is interesting and the choices made in the research seem to be relevant.
In any case, I have some concerns related to the development of the paper and I hope these comments and suggestions may be useful for improving your study. Good luck!
Literature review: it is interesting but some articles are very old. Authors should update bibliographic references. Point 2.5 should be in the methodology chapter (in point 3.1). The sentence construction of the formulated hypotheses must be revised.
Methodology: in chapter 3 correct the numbering of subpoints (3.1 and 3.2 and not 1.1 and 1.2). In the description of the instruments for measuring the variables, we found that they were not validated and are not properly justified, which impoverishes the investigation.
Discussion of data: it seems interesting but it is detached from theoretical review.
Conclusions: The conclusions are very succinct. Beyond the result discussion, it is necessary to enhance both the theoretical and practical contributions that this article implies to current literature. The authors must refer the limitations of the study and make suggestions for the future.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
the proposed article on corporate entrereneurship and organizational performance is actual and relevant for different stakeholders. However, it has some shortages that need to be improved.
First, the discussion part of the article does not discuss results, but rather just repeats the results of empirical analysis. Therefore, the whole discussion has to be leveled up by adding an improved in-depth analysis of results compared to other studies and commented from the content point of view.
Additionally, the conclusion part should be improved as well. Added should be explicit limitations, gaps, and implications of the study/results.
However, the empirical analysis is partially vague as it is based on a relatively small sample, companies are from different industries and there are differences between them.
Also, all three hypotheses must be improved regarding their expression following the example of the first one: "Innovation has a statistically significant positive relationship with firm's performance."
The variables, measuring the organizational performance are poorly defined and should be improved.
Wish you good luck with the article!
Reviewer 4 Report
In my opinion paper needs revision in organization and contents. In its current form, the paper is difficult for the reader to follow, and perhaps the contributions are further obfuscated because of this limitation.
- Introduction: This section should be improved. While the authors establish some links to some extant literature, authors need to establish a more coherent framework for the overall paper. That means, the introduction should clearly indicate the need for this paper in relation to extant research studies. There needs to be a clear link to the studies investigating the field. There is no background in this introduction stating the urge and novelty of the study in which innovative ideas must be flown through the background along with the useful insights.
Try to write this section in a continuous flow, showing (1) the problem that you are trying to solve, (2) the paper objectives and research questions, and (3) justifying why your proposal is necessary and its benefits. Paper motivations could be considerably strengthened by providing evidence, in practice and in theory, as to why is necessary to develop this proposal. Although introduction section is long, paper isn’t strongly motivated in terms of how it meets an existing gap in the literature.
In addition, there should be an overview of the rest of the research. This should be the last paragraph of the introduction.
- Literature review: The literature review has to be connected with paper’s objectives and the problem that authors are trying to solve. The development of Table 1 Dimension of CE with its Definition, is not clear. Why have been only studied the first row dimensions?. This section needs to be re-written
- Discussion: Authors need to show that results are relevant (as compared with the work of other authors that have been published before). Similarly, the paper would benefit from a discussion about observed findings which contradicted what was expected. More comparison with other works in the literature is necessary, to stand out what their contribution to the State of the art is, and if their findings fit with what was expected. Although there is some discussion now, I found it weak as there isn’t relation between the findings and the authors’ literature review. In addition, I would like that authors show better the consequences for academics and practitioners of the results.
- Conclusion: The limitations of the study and suggestions of future research should be identified too.
