Selection of Manufacturing Enterprise Innovation Design Project Based on Consumer’s Green Preferences
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In general, the article seems to us to be poorly developed. For example, the introduction should be clearer regarding the objectives of the paper. In the introduction should be indicated what is the state of the question being investigated and, from there, what is the true contribution of the paper. In our opinion, the introduction of the paper fails in both tasks. For example, lines 61 and 62 indicate: "A new evaluation method for green innovation project selection is proposed from a consumer's green preferences perspective", and lines 64-66: "Our contribution is to provide a theoretical basis and decision-making reference to help enterprise and select the green innovation project under consumer's green requirements management ". There is some confusion; Is the contribution to propose a new method or to provide a theoretical basis?
Likewise, it seems to us that the review of the literature is not directly connected with the contribution that the paper intends. In this regard, in section 2 (Literature Review) citations are made that are not related to the topic of the paper. For example, lines 91-93 refer to the spillovers and absorption capacity of manufacturing companies, but these two variables are no longer addressed in the paper.
On the other hand, in the epigraph 3 (The influence factors for enterprise innovation performance) the different performances are poorly defined and related and this is not admissible since this epigraph is where the key information that will facilitate the decision making of the model resides. The author or authors do not adequately separate the different levels of performance. The concepts of innovation performance, market performance, output performance is mixed with little academic rigor. In Sustainability there are many articles that deal with this topic. For example:
Mazzi, A.; Toniolo, S.; Manzardo, A.; Ren, J.; Scipioni, A. Exploring the direction on the environmental and business performance relationship at the firm level. Lessons from a literature review. Sustainability 2016, 8, 1-25.
González-Blanco, J.; Coca-Pérez, J.L.; Guisado-González; M. Contribution of technological and non-technological innovation to environmental performance. An Analysis with a complementary approach. Sustainability 2018, 10, 1-26.
Finally note that the formal aspects of the article exhibit a high level of carelessness and disorder. Throughout the text there are quotes whose authors are written in capital letters while others are written in lower case. When there is a co-authorship, sometimes all authors are cited and sometimes only the first author. It is obvious that the dating system does not follow any normally accepted standard pattern. There is great disorder and great carelessness. This disorder is also present in the epigraph of the "references". In this section it must be exposed all the data that allow us to identify an article. However, in citation 16, "Sui Jun; Bi kexin; Yang Zaojun et al. ": We do not know who the other authors are. In general, text and citations are incorrectly presented.
Author Response
Respond to the comments of reviewer 1
Point 1: In general, the article seems to us to be poorly developed. For example, the introduction should be clearer regarding the objectives of the paper. In the introduction should be indicated what is the state of the question being investigated and, from there, what is the true contribution of the paper. In our opinion, the introduction of the paper fails in both tasks. For example, lines 61 and 62 indicate: "A new evaluation method for green innovation project selection is proposed from a consumer's green preferences perspective", and lines 64-66: "Our contribution is to provide a theoretical basis and decision-making reference to help enterprise and select the green innovation project under consumer's green requirements management ". There is some confusion; Is the contribution to propose a new method or to provide a theoretical basis?
Response 1: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. According to this valuable suggestion, we have carefully thought our work and its contributions. In order to indicate the state of the question and the true contribution of the paper, we have changed the lines 54-59, 60-67. That mainly includes “Our contribution is to provide an effective method to help enterprise identify the correlation between customers’ green preference and indicators of innovation performance, then evaluate and select the green innovation project under consumer's green requirements management, to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs”, and so on.
Point 2: Likewise, it seems to us that the review of the literature is not directly connected with the contribution that the paper intends. In this regard, in section 2 (Literature Review) citations are made that are not related to the topic of the paper. For example, lines 91-93 refer to the spillovers and absorption capacity of manufacturing companies, but these two variables are no longer addressed in the paper.
Respond 2: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. According to this valuable suggestion, we have carefully measure the correlation between contribution and literature in section 2 citations. We have deleted irrelevant literature, as lines 91-93 refer to the spillovers and absorption capacity of manufacturing companies. And some related literature of was added, such as in the "references" [35] and [36].
Point 3: On the other hand, in the epigraph 3 (The influence factors for enterprise innovation performance) the different performances are poorly defined and related and this is not admissible since this epigraph is where the key information that will facilitate the decision making of the model resides. The author or authors do not adequately separate the different levels of performance. The concepts of innovation performance, market performance, output performance is mixed with little academic rigor. In Sustainability there are many articles that deal with this topic. For example:
Mazzi, A.; Toniolo, S.; Manzardo, A.; Ren, J.; Scipioni, A. Exploring the direction on the environmental and business performance relationship at the firm level. Lessons from a literature review. Sustainability 2016, 8, 1-25.
González-Blanco, J.; Coca-Pérez, J.L.; Guisado-González; M. Contribution of technological and non-technological innovation to environmental performance. An Analysis with a complementary approach. Sustainability 2018, 10, 1-26.
Respond 3: Thanks for the valuable comments and suggestions. As the expert point out, adequate separate for the different levels of performance is very important. So we have deleted those mixed indicator: "Level of green technical innovation", "Level of green market". In combination with comments of the expert, "Environmental performance of green innovation" and "Level of customer collaborative innovation" have been increased in the category 3. And, the related literature of sustainability was quoted in the "references" [35] and [36] too.
Point 4: Finally note that the formal aspects of the article exhibit a high level of carelessness and disorder. Throughout the text there are quotes whose authors are written in capital letters while others are written in lower case. When there is a co-authorship, sometimes all authors are cited and sometimes only the first author. It is obvious that the dating system does not follow any normally accepted standard pattern. There is great disorder and great carelessness. This disorder is also present in the epigraph of the "references". In this section it must be exposed all the data that allow us to identify an article. However, in citation 16, "Sui Jun; Bi kexin; Yang Zaojun et al. ": We do not know who the other authors are. In general, text and citations are incorrectly presented.
Respond 4: Thanks for those beneficial suggestions. To improve the quality of the paper, we carefully checked the whole text and "references". And all details were modified as the expert suggested, such as all the revision of "references". The relevant revised portions were marked in blue color.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear author(s9 first of all thanks a lot for this very interesting paper. It focus on an aspect of actual relevance especially in capitalist societies.
The paper is well written but a minor revision of the paper is needed to make it more readily and understandable.
My suggestions are as follow:
In the introduction, the research objective and its relevance, especially on the basis of the proposed approach, should be better introduced and presented.
The content of the second section should be more focused on explaining the features of the previous measurements to make clearer at the end the main differences between the proposed existing methodologies and the proposed one in the paper.
the third section should be developed in order to explain better my those features are important and it would appreciated if could support your statements with some more literature.
the sentence beginning at row 124 seems meaningless.
Author Response
Respond to the comments of reviewer 2
Point 1: In the introduction, the research objective and its relevance, especially on the basis of the proposed approach, should be better introduced and presented.
Respond 1: Thank you for the valuable comments and suggestions, and we strongly agree with your suggestions. In order to better introduce the basis of the proposed approach, we have revised the introduction, lines 54-67, which included ”the correlation between the customer’s green preference and the innovation performance in enterprise is often difficult to accurately identify, and the indicators for innovation performance have a different impact on innovation schemes”, ”Combined with the consumer's green preferences, the indicators for innovation performance in enterprise are analyzed. A correlation analysis mechanism based on a Fuzzy Clustering Analysis and WNN method is designed for selecting the green innovation project. Our contribution is to provide an effective method to help enterprise identify the correlation between customers’ green preference and indicators of innovation performance, then evaluate and select the green innovation project” and so on. The detailed revision is shown in the new introduction and marked by blue color.
Point 2: The content of the second section should be more focused on explaining the features of the previous measurements to make clearer at the end the main differences between the proposed existing methodologies and the proposed one in the paper.
Respond 2: Thank you for the valuable comments and suggestions, They are very helpful to improve our research. Based on the valuable comments, we have given the relevant content for revision in lines 139-148, which included "the correlation between the enterprise performance and the customer green preference is not considered simultaneously in the selection of enterprise innovation project. Moreover, considering the customers’ green preferences, the innovation project evaluation and selection is needed to be studied further ". Revised portions are marked in blue color. And we have deleted those unclear descriptions such as "uncertainty, incompleteness, and diversity" and so on.
Point 3: the third section should be developed in order to explain better my those features are important and it would appreciated if could support your statements with some more literature.
Respond 3: Thanks for the valuable comments and suggestions. As the expert point out, we have deleted those mixed indicator: "Level of green technical innovation", "Level of green market". At the same time, "Environmental performance of green innovation" and "Level of customer collaborative innovation" have been increased in the category 3. And, the related literature of sustainability was quoted in the "references" [35] and [36] too.
Point 4: the sentence beginning at row 124 seems meaningless.
Respond 4: Thanks for the valuable comments. As the expert point out, we have deleted this sentence beginning at row 124, which did not affect the description of literature.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for this opportunity to review your paper that proposed a new evaluation method to select a green innovation project based on consumers' green preference. The topic looks interesting; however, there are some critical weaknesses in different parts of this paper:
1. Introduction. You have highlighted the importance of conducting green innovation activities to manufacturing enterprises, but the main research questions and the significance of your research remain unclear. For example, in line 60, you claimed, "this paper focuses on studying the problem of green innovation project selection for consumer's green preferences in the manufaturing enterprise. A new evaluation method for green innovation project is proposed from a consumer's green preferences perspective". This looks quite blurred as no specific objective or problem was addressed. I would suggest you to at least better clarify the research gaps about the use of a consumer's perspective to study relevant innovation issues, whereby your contributions to the existing body of knowledge can be specified.
2. Theoretical foundation
You have provided a certain understanding of relevant studies; nevertheless, the theoretical rationale for your research needs to be better articulated. For example, between Line 142 and 155,although you intended to indicate the gap in the literature, the lack of proper citations makes your arguments look unconvincing and weak. It is unpersuasive that the impacts of customers' green preferences to innovation project evaluation are "uncertainty, incompleteness, and diversity" (Line 146-147). Similar problems exist in the third section " the influence factors for enterprise innovation performance"—— it is also not convincing to me why innovation performance of manfuacturing has 3 main attributes （refer to line181-186). In this vein, I would suggest you to conduct a fundamental rethinking and thereby to build an overaraching theoretical foundation underpinning your arguments.
3. Methods.
It is rather interesting that you proposed a new evaluation/decision-making method for selecting green innovation projects from a consumer's preferences perspective by adopting the fuzzy clustering analysis and the Wavelet Neural Network modelling. However, due to the critical issues on classifying main attributes of the influential factors noted above, your analysis is not very convincing to me. I would suggest you to first justify your classification on attributes as mentioned above, whereby you can develop a more potent theoretical logic underpinning your proposed novel evalutation method.
4. Case study.
Your effort in using a case study to validate your method is applaudable. However, you need to largely enhance the methodological rigor of this case study. I would suggest you to at least justify the appropriateness of the case selection and provide far more detailed information about the design and conduct of the survey as well as the procedure of data collection.
Overall, this research with a rather interesting and pragmatic topic has the potential to make valuable practical implications. However, this research in its current form requires further improvement to strengthen its academic value and depth.
Author Response
Respond to the comments of reviewer 3
Thanks the expert’ detailed comments and suggestions very much. Those comments and suggestions were deep and valuable, so we have reviewed the content in paper carefully, and researched other relevant literature to increase understanding of the research topic. Now the revised content is presented in order to obtain the expert’s approval.
Point 1: Introduction.
You have highlighted the importance of conducting green innovation activities to manufacturing enterprises, but the main research questions and the significance of your research remain unclear. For example, in line 60, you claimed, "this paper focuses on studying the problem of green innovation project selection for consumer's green preferences in the manufaturing enterprise. A new evaluation method for green innovation project is proposed from a consumer's green preferences perspective". This looks quite blurred as no specific objective or problem was addressed. I would suggest you to at least better clarify the research gaps about the use of a consumer's perspective to study relevant innovation issues, whereby your contributions to the existing body of knowledge can be specified.
Respond 1: Thanks for the valuable comments and suggestions. We strongly agree with your suggestions, and we have revised the introduction, lines 54-67, which included ”the correlation between the customer’s green preference and the innovation performance in enterprise is often difficult to accurately identify, and the indicators for innovation performance have a different impact on innovation schemes”, ”Combined with the consumer's green preferences, the indicators for innovation performance in enterprise are analyzed. A correlation analysis mechanism based on a Fuzzy Clustering Analysis and WNN method is designed for selecting the green innovation project. Our contribution is to provide an effective method to help enterprise identify the correlation between customers’ green preference and indicators of innovation performance, then evaluate and select the green innovation project” and so on. The detailed revision is shown in the new introduction and marked by blue color.
Point 2: Theoretical foundation.
You have provided a certain understanding of relevant studies; nevertheless, the theoretical rationale for your research needs to be better articulated. For example, between Line 142 and 155, although you intended to indicate the gap in the literature, the lack of proper citations makes your arguments look unconvincing and weak. It is unpersuasive that the impacts of customers' green preferences to innovation project evaluation are "uncertainty, incompleteness, and diversity" (Line 146-147). Similar problems exist in the third section " the influence factors for enterprise innovation performance"—— it is also not convincing to me why innovation performance of manfuacturing has 3 main attributes （refer to line181-186). In this vein, I would suggest you to conduct a fundamental rethinking and thereby to build an overaraching theoretical foundation underpinning your arguments.
Respond 2: Thank you for the valuable comments and suggestions. They are very helpful to improve our research. After consulting literature, we have given the relevant content for revision in lines 139-148， which included "the correlation between the enterprise performance and the customer green preference is not considered simultaneously in the selection of enterprise innovation project. Moreover, considering the customers’ green preferences, the innovation project evaluation and selection is needed to be studied further ". Revised portions are marked in blue color. And we have deleted those descriptions such as "uncertainty, incompleteness, and diversity" mentioned in the comments certainly.
According to the detailed valuable comments and suggestions, in order to describe clearly, we have changed "the influence factors for enterprise innovation performance" into" the indicators for enterprise innovation performance" ,"Attribute" into "category", and "Sub-attribute" into "index" and so on. Considering the innovation project selection in enterprise oriented to product innovation mainly, in combination with consumer's green preferences, the indicators system was built by three categories. At same time, we have deleted "Level of green technical innovation" and "Level of green market", which mixed with other indicators. Then "environmental performance of green innovation" and "level of customer collaborative innovation" have been added accordingly.
Point 3: Methods.
It is rather interesting that you proposed a new evaluation/decision-making method for selecting green innovation projects from a consumer's preferences perspective by adopting the fuzzy clustering analysis and the Wavelet Neural Network modelling. However, due to the critical issues on classifying main attributes of the influential factors noted above, your analysis is not very convincing to me. I would suggest you to first justify your classification on attributes as mentioned above, whereby you can develop a more potent theoretical logic underpinning your proposed novel evalutation method.
Respond 3: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. According to this valuable suggestion, we have consulted a lot of literature of the enterprise innovation performance. From those literatures, we have found that “influence factors of innovation performance” is not accurate for our research topics. Correctly, "influence factors" has been changed into "indicators", "Attribute" into "category", and "Sub-attribute" into "index" and so on. Based on "the indicators for enterprise innovation" mainly have been divided into three categories in literatures: process, output, EES(economic、environment、society). Considering the research content of consumer's green preferences, we have revised Table 1. Those mixed indicator: "Level of green technical innovation", "Level of green market" have been deleted, and "Environmental performance of green innovation" and "Level of customer collaborative innovation" have been increased in the category 3 and so on.
Point 4: Case study.
Your effort in using a case study to validate your method is applaudable. However, you need to largely enhance the methodological rigor of this case study. I would suggest you to at least justify the appropriateness of the case selection and provide far more detailed information about the design and conduct of the survey as well as the procedure of data collection.
Respond 4: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In order to enhance the methodological rigor of this case study, we have added the comparison of the ranking results in different methods. And the ranking results are shown in table 5, shown in lines 414-418. At the same time, the relevant literatures were marked with [44] and [45]. In addition, we have systematically revised the abstract and the related content in lines 187-190 based on comments and suggestions. The detailed revision is shown and marked in the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper brings application of fuzzy clustering and wave neural network methods by selection of innovation design project considering green preferences and principles.
The paper is very fine structured, readable and understandable. I admire a high quality of a literature review. However, its contribution to development of science knowledge is unclear.
The structure of the paper follows recommended structure of scientific paper. I recommend changing the title of chapter 5 – it should be named as results.
My comments for improvement of the paper are as follows:
- I miss source of initial information in fuzzy clustering analysis.
- The limitations of the presented research and contribution to development of scientific knowledge are missing in conclusions.
- In table 4, the title of last column is not in English,
List of references should be adjusted according to editorial instructions (there is a different way of wiring the names of authors – some are in big and some are in small capitals)
Author Response
Respond to the comments of reviewer 4
Point 1: The paper is very fine structured, readable and understandable. I admire a high quality of a literature review. However, its contribution to development of science knowledge is unclear.
Respond 1: Thank you for the valuable comments and suggestions. It is very helpful to improve our research. according to the suggestion, we have clear the contribution to development of science knowledge as line 64-67: "Our contribution is to provide an effective method to help enterprise identify the correlation between customers’ green preference and indicators of innovation performance, then evaluate and select the green innovation project under consumer's green requirements management", and so on.
Point 2: The structure of the paper follows recommended structure of scientific paper. I recommend changing the title of chapter 5 – it should be named as results.
Respond 2: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. According to this valuable suggestion, we have renamed the title of chapter 5 as results.
Point 3: My comments for improvement of the paper are as follows:
-I miss source of initial information in fuzzy clustering analysis.
Respond 3: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion.. To clear the source of initial information in fuzzy clustering analysis, we have revised line 200: " is defined as unidentified set of indicator for innovation performance in the enterprise", and line 346"As defined above, the unidentified set of indicator for innovation performance in the enterprise is" .
Point 4: The limitations of the presented research and contribution to development of scientific knowledge are missing in conclusions.
Respond 4: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. In order to limitations of the presented research and contribution to development of scientific knowledge, we have added a new section of “limitation and contribution” in lines 441-448. The detailed revision is shown and marked in the revised manuscript.
Point 5: In table 4, the title of last column is not in English,
Respond 5: Thank you very much for the suggestion. This mistake should not to be made. According to the suggestion, we have revised the title of last column in English. Moreover, we have carefully checked the whole paper to avoid the same mistakes.
Point 6: List of references should be adjusted according to editorial instructions (there is a different way of wiring the names of authors – some are in big and some are in small capitals)
Respond 6: Thank you very much for the suggestion. To improve the quality of the paper, we carefully checked the whole references. And, all details were adjusted according to editorial instructions, such as all the revision of "references". The relevant revised portions were marked in blue color.
Dear reviewer， in the response 3, some equation may not be able to show. Please see the attach file. Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The sentence of lines 443-444 contains a minor mistake at the end.
Author Response
Respond to the comments of reviewer 1
Point1：The sentence of lines 443-444 contains a minor mistake at the end.
Respond 1: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. We have carefully revised the sentence of lines 443-444, and the redundant word at the end was deleted.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
It is obvious that this paper has been significantly improved. However, a critical weakness, namely the lack of proper citations remains. For instance, between Line 54 and 59, you need to add citations underpinning your arguments. Between Line 137 and 143, you wrote, " there have been quite a few works in the related field.....". However, you didn't give us any citations on these works.
I would suggest you to carefully review your paper again and thereby to add proper citations and references underpinning your arguments. Hope my comments are helpful.
Author Response
Respond to the comments of reviewer 3
Point1：It is obvious that this paper has been significantly improved. However, a critical weakness, namely the lack of proper citations remains. For instance, between Line 54 and 59, you need to add citations underpinning your arguments. Between Line 137 and 143, you wrote, " there have been quite a few works in the related field.....". However, you didn't give us any citations on these works.
I would suggest you to carefully review your paper again and thereby to add proper citations and references underpinning your arguments. Hope my comments are helpful.
Respond 1: Thanks the expert’ detailed comments and suggestions very much. Those comments and suggestions were deep and valuable, so we have reviewed the content in paper carefully, and researched other relevant literature to increase understanding of the research topic. Now the revised content is presented in order to obtain the expert’s approval. That includes:
Revision 1: between Line 54 and 63, we have added relevant citations [12-13] and instructions to underpinning our arguments.
Revision 2: between Line 79 and 82, we have added relevant citations [14] and description to explain the overall situation of literature.
Revision 3: between Line 102 and 109, we have adjusted the citations [20] to explain research on enterprise innovation performance that consider with the customer preference.
Revision 4: between Line 130 and 135, we have added relevant citations [28] to account for research on innovative project selection that consider with the customer information.
Revision 5: according to expert comments, we have revised the content between Line 137 and 143 to Line 149 and 153. Those detailed revision has been shown in the new introduction and literature review which marked by green color.
