Industry Performance Appraisal Using Improved MCDM for Next Generation of Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

all particulars are given in the abstract, except for one fact - authors should place the question addressed in a broad context. Keywords should also be modified.The abstract is too long, it should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The article is not structured appropriately. The literature review is adequate quality and up to date. The description of the results link to the conclusions. However, research hypotheses are not formulated in the article.

The article could be improved in many other areas, please see the recommendations below.

Recommendations:

• place the question addressed in a broad context in abstract
• shorten the abstract
• add “manufacturing industry” to your keywords; replace keyword "business performance" with keyword "industry performance"
• chapter 2. is not the literature review, but rather the description of the current situation
• chapter 2.3 does not belong to chapter 2. but rather to the chapter dealing with methodology
• formulate and verify research hypotheses in manuscript
• at the beginning of chapter 3., before describing the individual models, describe the methodology used in detail
• chapter 4. should rather be called Results and discussion
• in chapter 4.7 the authors should discuss the findings and their implications in more detail (something is stated in the conclusion)
• in chapter 4.7 the authors should highlighted limitations of their work and add recommendations for further scientific research and improvements
• add if there are any limitation of this research

 Conclusion:

I suggest rework the manuscript according to the above recommendations.

Author Response

Thanks for reviewer’s valuable suggestions. After several thorough discussions with all authors, we have modified the necessary corrections as the table below. Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript is sound, very interesting and promising. The overall merit, interest, scientific soundness and novelty could be improved by considering following aspects:

1. 2.1 and 2.2. The data from development trends is from 2011-2015. Is there no newer data available? I think it would increase the value of this research to have data also from 2016-2020 where negative growth was occurring.
2. At industry level, it is maybe relevant to study that as an ecosystem/network. If we consider Industry Performance as a phenomenon, are these assessment variables powerful in explaining the current situation in that ecosystem? Does your study indicate that some other variables needs to be considered? Please elaborate this aspect more. Which variables did you consider? Why did you choose these ones?
3. The current chosen assessment variables operate on quite top level. This information is of course easier to access vs. company benefits from different assets e.g. platforms etc. In any case these assessment variables are partly more like "proxy" indicators rather than actual variables. Revenue is attractive variable, did you consider profit as variable also?
    
4. Please elaborate why did you choose these research methods. Which alternatives did you consider? Why did you choose these ones?

Author Response

Many thanks for your positive feedback and encouragement. We are committed to upgrade the quality of this paper by improving each aspect you have advised us as the table below.

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This study is an extremely interesting paper.

I have closely read the entire paper and have a few minor comments that I suggest to the authors:

• Literature review. Your paper might use a few more references, even quite recent ones. I noticed there are 4 refrences from 2019, but I expected more.
• Emphasize how the authors deal with the limits of this paper within the body of the paper
• You've done a faboulus work with the methods you've used. But Table 6 Input and Output of 12 Industries contains data reported in 2016?! I would appreciate more recent data, if available, for your study.
• The robustness checks subsection is rather inexistent. How can you improve this aspect?

• Conclusions. The authors need to emphasize the international dimension of their findings, the originality and value of their research a little bit more. I think they should develop the authors’ future research directions.

• The paper should be proofread, as there exist some English in use mistakes.These suggestions will improve the quality of this manuscript and they will make the paper more suitable for being published, due to its interesting and detailed results.

Author Response

Thanks for the reviewer for the valuable suggestions. After the discussions of the co-authors, we have modified the necessary corrections as the table below.

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

thank you for making the changes to this article. I have the last comment on the edited text:

There is not clearly stated in the text whether the hypotheses set out in the Introduction have been refuted or confirmed. For example hypothesis 1.xxx, was confirmed.

Please correct your text according it.

Thank you.

 

Author Response

We really appreciate the very constructive comments from editor and reviewers to enhance this paper to next level. The revised manuscript is also revised accordingly as highlighted in blue (Page 3)

"The hypotheses in this study are confirmed: 1) the criteria weight of performance appraisal can be determined by our designed modeling automatically to achieve optimal effect; 2) the inputs and outputs identified in this study are proven to have causal relation; and 3) the ranking analysis of 12 chosen manufacturing industries are supported significantly."

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for your detailed answers from the Report.

Good luck for the future!

Author Response

We really appreciate the very constructive comments from editor and reviewers to enhance this paper to next level. The revised manuscript is also revised accordingly as highlighted in blue (Page 3)

 

"The hypotheses in this study are confirmed: 1) the criteria weight of performance appraisal can be determined by our designed modeling automatically to achieve optimal effect; 2) the inputs and outputs identified in this study are proven to have causal relation; and 3) the ranking analysis of 12 chosen manufacturing industries are supported significantly."