Performance Evaluation of Reverse Logistics: Opportunities for Future Research

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is an attempt to analyse the performance within a Reverse Logistics supply chain system. However the theoretical background is not well structured and presented. It appears to be a systematic literature review but this is not comparative and critical. Despite some theoretical approaches presented and using a classification framework for research data and Proknow system.

Therefore I am advising to define clear aim and objectives of the research, providing a systematic literature review.

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the contributions of the reviewers. We added new quotes as suggested and improved textual and technical aspects.

About ProKnow-C steps:

We chose not to perform the Systemic Analysis in this article, since the objective is to characterize the trajectory of international research in the context of Reverse Logistics and Performance Evaluation. This objective is already achieved with the qualitative analysis of Bibliometrics conducted in bibliographic portfolio, through the basic and advanced variables. In addition, conducting bibliometric analysis already provides the identification of theoretical alignment between performance evaluation and reverse logistics. On the other hand, the systemic analysis provides through the lenses of a theoretical affiliation the construction of a critical view based on the bibliographic portfolio, which would not be covered by this article.

We hope to have attended to all aspects and thank you for your attention.

Reviewer 2 Report

The study analyzes the characteristics of the scientific research in Reverse Logistics under the perspective of the Performance Evaluation and point out the development of a structured performance evaluation tool for future investigations.

The article shows wich authors have been more prominent in the subject in recent years, although it does not present a very recent bibliography. Should include references from 2017/2018 at least It is used the (ProKnow-C) as an instrument based in 4 steps. The methodology is clearly explained but step 3 of the system is not used. The reason for not applying step 3 must be explained. Some corrections need to be done: Line 88: change “Academia” by ”academe” or other related” Line 161: change “Referencer” by “Reference” Line 197: Change “Logistic” by “Logistics” Line 216: change “ret ornos” by “returns” From line 366 the reference numbers from figures must be corrected with one number more. Example in line 366 change “figure 11” by “figure 12” and so on…

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the contributions of the reviewers. We added new quotes as suggested and improved textual and technical aspects.

About ProKnow-C steps:

We chose not to perform the Systemic Analysis in this article, since the objective is to characterize the trajectory of international research in the context of Reverse Logistics and Performance Evaluation. This objective is already achieved with the qualitative analysis of Bibliometrics conducted in bibliographic portfolio, through the basic and advanced variables. In addition, conducting bibliometric analysis already provides the identification of theoretical alignment between performance evaluation and reverse logistics. On the other hand, the systemic analysis provides through the lenses of a theoretical affiliation the construction of a critical view based on the bibliographic portfolio, which would not be covered by this article.

We hope to have attended to all aspects and thank you for your attention.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for an opportunity to review the paper titled “Performance Evaluation of Reverse Logistics: Opportunities for Future Research".

The paper focus on an important topic which certainly constitutes a source of improvements for research and for managers. Despite the topic's interested, however, I have several concerns over the contribution because the roots of reverse logisticS (with S) are over simplistic and discussed too little.

In detail, I don't see reasons to do not include logistics, operations journal as JOM, IJPDLM, JBL, you need to justify better. Second, I don't understand how the authors defined "performance", to me customer satisfaction is a performance as well as customer loyalty as well as responsiveness.

Based on that I would suggest to start from the definition of performance and the relative boundaries respect the reverse flow, than move to literature review.

Please, refer to Govidan and his colleagues to clarify the two concepts as well as review last 2-3 years of literature in the supply chain journals, not just in the operations one. Probably it could help to have a clear statement about the differences between closed loop supply chain, reverse logistics, returns management process and reverse supply chain.

Finally, I have some concerns regarding your literature review approach. You perform a literature review to inform your development of the links. As it is currently written, it appears that your literature review follows more of a focus on the authors. In other words, you mention a paper, discuss what the authors found, and move to the next paper. It reads a little like a series of article summaries rather than a concise, focused discussion about particular themes. Webster and Watson (2002), although dated, is a great resource to use to reassess your literature review analysis. They provide a thorough and rigorous method for performing a literature review.

Suggest references to have an overview of the phenomenon beyond your perspective:

Wang, J.-J., Chen, H., Rogers, D.S., Ellram, L.M., & Grawe, S.J. (2017) IJPDLM

Russo, I., Confente, I., Gligor, D., & Cobelli, N. (2019) IJPDLM

Rogers, D.S., Melamed, B., & Lembke, R.S. (2012) JBL

good luck

Author Response

We greatly appreciate the contributions of the reviewers. We added new quotes as suggested and improved textual and technical aspects.

About ProKnow-C steps:

We chose not to perform the Systemic Analysis in this article, since the objective is to characterize the trajectory of international research in the context of Reverse Logistics and Performance Evaluation. This objective is already achieved with the qualitative analysis of Bibliometrics conducted in bibliographic portfolio, through the basic and advanced variables. In addition, conducting bibliometric analysis already provides the identification of theoretical alignment between performance evaluation and reverse logistics. On the other hand, the systemic analysis provides through the lenses of a theoretical affiliation the construction of a critical view based on the bibliographic portfolio, which would not be covered by this article.

We hope to have attended to all aspects and thank you for your attention.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciate the efforts for improving the paper that become of quite good quality in order to be published. I would suggest to address the following issues:

The Theoretical Reference should be entitled Theoretical Framework and Methodological Framework should be just Methodology and Materials and Methods should be Literature and Analysing Methods To include update references in figure 3 To refine the academic English.

Author Response

We appreciate the considerations and apply it in this new version of the article.

We were pleased with the improvements made to the article and the evolution.

Other suggestions from the reviewers were also incorporated.

Thanks,

The Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I read carefully your revisions and you did not take in consideration at all my review.

The lack of commitment towards my and other suggestions by the Authors is easily show respect their answer to the Reviewers and the edits they did it in the manuscript. while I did my best to be very professional in the response to their manuscript.
I came to this conclusion as they did not address my comments and this is easily notable from the very few changes in red I seein the revised manuscript.

Author Response

We apologize for the first review process.

The authors had internal problems and could not meet the established requirements.

We greatly appreciate the reviewers' contribution in making the article more robust and quality.

We ask you to take this new revision, with corrections and incorporations of the first and second rounds.

We take into consideration the weightings of the other reviewers and forward the updated file.

We are available for further consideration by the reviewers.

Best Regards,

The authors

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Please, develop better the future research, starting to connect your paper with those 2 important paper in the field:

Russo, I., Confente, I., Gligor, D., & Cobelli, N. (2019). A roadmap for applying qualitative comparative analysis in supply chain research: The reverse supply chain case. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 49(1), 99-120.   Wang, J. J., Chen, H., Rogers, D. S., Ellram, L. M., & Grawe, S. J. (2017). A bibliometric analysis of reverse logistics research (1992-2015) and opportunities for future research. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 47(8), 666-687.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We really appreciated the suggested works that you've send us. They are complementary to our study and could help us to enrich our discussion about the framework proposed in Figure 16. We also portray more clearly the future researches indication. 

We really thank you for your contributions that are helping to enrich our paper and our research.

Respectfully,

Round 4

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for new edits! Good luck!