Review Reports - The Impact of Digitalization on Performance Indicators of Russian Commercial Banks in 2021

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I thank the respected editor for this great oppurtunity.

My Comments:

*Kindly write an informative abstract.

*It is hard to under the scientific contribution of the study.

*The methodology section is totally confusing.

*Authors should include a separate section for Data.

*The conclusion should be more comprehensive, and also include the results-based policies.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thank you for your review of our paper. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have carefully revised the manuscript according to comments referred by the reviewers.

Comments: Kindly write an informative abstract.

Response: We have made changes to the abstract. We tried to make it more informative.

Comments: It is hard to under the scientific contribution of the study.

Response: We have expanded the introduction and added information about scientific novelty. A description of the theoretical and practical significances of our research results is presented in the revised section "Conclusion".

Comments: The methodology section is totally confusing.

Response: The Methodology section has been redesigned. The information in the section was structured.

Comments: Authors should include a separate section for Data.

Response: We have added a separate subsection with data to the manuscript.

Comments: The conclusion should be more comprehensive, and also include the results-based policies.

Response: The conclusion has been expanded. We have added the subsection "Policy recommendations and Future Research" to the conclusion.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I'd like to congratulate you and your team on your excellent research work in your paper submitted for publication in this prestigious journal. The topic is very interesting, and I enjoyed it. I would like to thank you for your efforts in presenting your research work in such a professional manner. However, before your work is recommended or accepted, a few comments must be included to improve the quality of your work as well as for future publication in this reputable journal. I have the following observations, questions, and comments that may help to improve your work. The authors must modify the following points in great detail.

1. In the abstract, please include 2-3 special quantitative achievements from the findings of this study in the context of the environment by combining the research objectives and problems. Please limit your abstract to 250 words. Check spellings for many words that are misspelt or written in haste.

2. The introduction section needs a few more sentences to strengthen the article, and please include the research problem, objective, and novelty in the last paragraph of the Introduction section.

3. Include a few more sentences at the beginning of the introduction explaining your paper's contribution to the environment, climate change impact, and sustainability, as well as your attempts to deal with or present solutions to a specific problem/s and your unique contribution with this research paper.

4. Please also present the methodology section in a concise graphical format.

5. The literature review section is very weak; please revise it.

6. Please present your literature review in the form of a SmartArt chart.

7. Just after the Methodology, please mention the societal benefits of your research in terms of evaluating its key determinant.

8. In 500-750 words, explain research problems, solutions, and the theoretical contribution of your study in the "Results" section.

9. Please include graphical presentations of your findings.

10. Describe why you placed this study in a separate section of "Policy Suggestions" just before the section of "Conclusions."

11. Please include serial numbers in the subsection headings.

12. In the section of conclusions, add three more paragraphs (at least 250 words excluding the existing one) mentioning the limitations of the study and remedies to limitations with achieved objectives after conducting this study.

13. Add about 150 words to the conclusion section to explain the future scope of your research study, any limitations encountered while conducting your research, and the procedure for removing research limitations.

14. Also, explain all of the tables more briefly, as well as the explanations for each table in the "Results" sections.

15. Poor command of the English language. Almost all sentences in the manuscript should be revised with proper grammar, punctuation, and speech (active or passive voices).

16. Please avoid using multiple nouns and verbs in a single sentence to increase the pressure on the real and simple meaning of your sentences.

17. The "Discussion" section is missing. Add a section before the section of "Conclusion" explaining the qualitative results of your research.

18. Include a few more references from this and other journals that are relevant to the research work. Also, make sure that all of your references are cited in the body text. Please use Mendeley for citations. Make your references using the APA/MLA referencing style.

I found that the literature section is a little weak, therefore it requires more studies to be reviewed therefore I suggest you to include the following work:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06952

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20567-6

https://doi.org/10.1177/09763996211041215

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15421-0

I think above all studies will make this study more relevant in bridging the gap with literature.

Looking forward for your revised submission.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

1. We have made changes to the abstract. We tried to make it more informative.

2. We have expanded the introduction and added information about scientific novelty.

3. We have include the research problem, objective in the Introduction section.

4. We have included a few more sentences in the introduction explaining our paper's contribution to the environment, climate change impact, and sustainability.

5. We have presented the methodology section in a concise graphical format.

6. We have expanded the literature review section after we found and studied several more research papers.

7. We have used the SmartArt chart to present one of the parts of our literary review.

8. After the Methodology, we have mentioned the societal benefits of your research.

9. We have expanded the "Results" section. In 500-750 words we have explained research problems, solutions, and the theoretical contribution of our study. We have include graphical presentations of our findings.

10. The conclusion has been expanded. We have added the section "Policy recommendations and Future Research" to the conclusion.

11. Serial numbers has been included in the text n the subsection headings.

12. In the section of conclusions, we have added three more paragraphs mentioning the limitations of the study and remedies to limitations with achieved objectives after conducting this study.

13. We have added about 150 words to the conclusion section to explain the future scope of our research work, any limitations encountered while conducting your research, and the procedure for removing research limitations.

14. Some changes have been made to the table descriptions in the text.

15. We have tried to improve the quality of our English.

16. We have added the subsection "Discussion" before the section of "Conclusion". Thanks for your suggestions. We have include a few more references to the research work including the studies proposed by the reviewer.

17. Also, we are have changed referencing style.

Reviewer 3 Report

I recommend expanding the bibliography by identifying other bibliographic references related to the research theme proposed by this article proposal.

I also recommend, in the case of the application part, the use of quantitative econometric models to be tested and validated empirically with the help of databases established over a specific time horizon.

Consequently, I cannot recommend the publication of this article proposal without taking into consideration the recommendations made.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

We have expanded the bibliography to include works related to the research topic. We have expanded the literature review section after we found and studied several more research papers. We also have used the SmartArt chart to present one of the parts of our literary review.

We plan to build a series of quantitative econometric models on the topic under study in the next scientific paper. We are currently collecting additional data to build models. One of the key limitations is the insufficient amount of information in open databases. Most of the banks in the Russian Federation do not post detailed information about how exactly they carry out digitalization and how much money they spend on this process. In addition, the information that banks publish about digitalization, as a rule, does not include quantitative data.

We hope that the comments of other researchers that we will receive after the publication of this article will help us overcome existing problems and expand the data set.

Reviewer 4 Report

I suggest revised title: The Impact of Digitalization on Performance Indicators of Russian Commercial Banks in 2021

Excellent:

The goal of this research is to estimate the impact of digitalization on the key performance indicators of commercial banks and the prospects for the further development of digital technologies and their implementation by commercial banks.

I read closely the article. Well written and good analysis.

I agree:

This corresponds with the conclusions made by the authors of the study [41] that banks with a wide range of retail products are more actively involved in the development of digital competencies, while banks focusing on corporate investment business are less interested in the development of digital services. While in other industries, such as insurance, DIY retail, private medicine, digitalization is relevant for all market participants.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thank you for the positive comments. We have revised title to The Impact of Digitalization on Performance Indicators of Russian Commercial Banks in 2021.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I found that the literature section is a little weak, shift your study a little more towards environment friendly and sustainability, therefore it requires more studies to be reviewed therefore I suggest you to include the following work:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121524

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.102612

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.102685

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2022.123619

I think above all studies will make this study more relevant in bridging the gap with literature.

Looking forward for your revised submission.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your review of our paper.
Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.
We have expanded the literature review section after we found and studied several more research papers. We have included the studies devoted to the issues of achieving the sustainable development goals.

Reviewer 3 Report

For the foray into the knowledge stage, the authors made an effort in this regard and we can appreciate this even if it could be better.

On the other hand, for the application part of the article proposal, things are not going well. I recommend the development of an econometric model in which the dependent and independent variables are clearly highlighted, a database based on the example of commercial banks as well as a serious time horizon to give relevance to the empirical testing and validation of the econometric model.

Therefore, I still express my reservations regarding the publication of this article proposal and recommend the remedy of the mentioned aspects for the application part of the article proposal.

Author Response

Dear editor and reviewers,
Thank you for your review of our paper.
Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our further researches.
The subject of this study is the search for interdependencies between key performance indicators and the current level of digitalization of commercial banks. The construction of econometric models of the dependence of individual key performance indicators is a subject that requires a separate full-scale study. This is due to the fact that each key performance indicator of banks depends on a significant number of factors, including the level of digitalization. In this study, we have identified indicators that have a correlation dependence on the level of digitalization, so in further studies we plan to build models of the dependence of various Y on a set of factors, both related to digitalization and unrelated to it.