Innovation Pattern Heterogeneity and Crisis Resilience

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study examined the resilience of innovative firms in Norway during the Covid-19 pandemic using a new taxonomy, microlevel data from CIS2018, and Covid-19-related compensation scheme information. Probabilistic regression models were used to study the probability of negative impacts on firms during the pandemic. The study found that firms with pre-existing innovation capabilities, specifically active R&D doers, were more resilient than strategic adapters, which suggests that pre-existing innovation capabilities are important for firms to meet the challenges of the pandemic.

I found this study interesting and relevant. The paper is well-written and has valuable implications, but the introduction could use a little more organization.

“Rewrite the introduction”: It may require a clearer research question or objective. A statement that clearly states the research question or objective that the study aims to address. Also, the significance and contributions of the study are unclear. A summary of the potential contributions of the study should be provided, including how the study fills a gap in the literature, extends previous research, or provides new insights into the research problem. I recommend that the authors insert a brief flowchart summarizing the research process.

“The author needs to polish the paper overall to make it more readable.” 

Overall, I enjoyed reading this paper. I believe it can easily become a stronger piece after a minor revision.

Author Response

Please, check the enclosed file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper employs a Norwegian firm sample to investigate how firm innovation, as measured by a system of indicators developed by Capasso and Rybalka (2022), will affect firm resilience capability, as proxied by a dummy indicating whether the firm needs to heavily rely on government compensation or not. I have the following two major concerns and several small issues that if addressed may improve the paper further.

First, the innovation and firm resilience measure needs to be validated by alternative way of measure construction. Especially, crisis resilience has a much broader meaning than resilience to the pandemic-type of crisis, which mainly focuses on the halt of economic activities. The authors should argue carefully why these specific measures and specific setup can provide the right evidence to support the causal relationship suggested by the title.

Second, the paper misses some important literature published in top journals on firm innovation and also resilience insights provided by a series of industry reports (as so far as I know, resilience model still has scarce academic supports in the literature). Also, the exact mechanism or channels of why innovation may increase firm resilience needs more discussions.

Third, there are some small issues. E.g., in equation (1), the constant term is missing? I also suggest the author try to keep the sample constant when dividing samples into subsamples (or at least list a constant sample result on the side). It is hard to interpret the changing signs of estimated parameters across subsamples. For another example, I think more robustness tests are needed but may be not need to shown the details in the text. Finally, the limitations of this study should be discussed in the conclusion part.

Author Response

Please, check the enclosed file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf