Sustainable Innovation in Small Medium Enterprises: The Impact of Knowledge Management on Organizational Innovation through a Mediation Analysis by Using SEM Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The language/style should be improved. There are, for instance, orthographich errors like "induvial" (instead of "individual") at line 118 or grammatical mistakes like "The process of sharing and learning regulate" (instead of "The process of sharing and learning regulates") at line 130. 

Furthermore, the Introduction does not make any referral to the garments industry of Lahore & Gujranwala, which is instead mentioned in the Abstract. Since this should be the added-value of the following paper, it should be highlighted accordingly. The title does, for example, not reflect this peculiarity.

The literature provided is very extensive (which is positive), but it might be embedded into the text in a more "agile" way. Some sentences are not an easy read because of their several abbreviations and/or references to authors/literature. 

Author Response

Respected Reviewer, 

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments. These comments will surely improve the worth of our research. 

Please find attached the changes made as per your comments.

Thanks once again for your valuable input. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, I include some comments that I think can help improve your article.

Abstract:

Lines 22-24: the information about the management of the survey may not be relevant in the summary.

The authors mention four hypothesis of the research but do not provide additional information on the hypothesis nor the main findings.

Line 27, instead of giving a recommendation based on the results, the authors make their recommendation based on the limitations

Introduction:

The authors mention SOI and OI, are they the same concept?

It seems that the paragraphs that start on lines 52 and 64 are not linked

In lines 75 to 77, the authors state that they address the gaps in the literature, but those gaps do not seem to be highlighted in the preceding paragraphs.

The objectives of lines 78 are not clearly defined, also why it is necessary to achieve those objectives.

Literature review:

Figure 1, it would be clearer if acronyms for each construct were included

Materials and methods:

The authors describe the research philosophy and justify the survey methodology, but do not describe or justify the SEM method and the software used.

Lines 290-294: they seem not to be related to the rest of the study, the application of categorization is in the research not clear.

OI constructions are not explained as KM or OL

Lines 305-306: the authors do not justify the inclusion of the control variables and the expected effects.

In line 339, the authors indicate that the AVE is italicized in Table 6, but it is not.

Line 360, instead of figure 3, should be figure 2

Check the results in 4.3.1, except for H-4, the data does not match table 8 and figure 2
Table 9 is not clear.

In table 10, it is not clear to me the meaning of the beta value and the repetition of the findings. Also the meaning of:

(.106 > .05) Mediation Exist

Accepted

Conclusions

Lines 410-415 are not clear.

The authors do not highlight the main findings, nor the novelty of the results, stating that they are in line with the literature and do not indicate the theoretical or practical contributions of the study

 

 

Author Response

Good Morning Respected Reviewer

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments and input. This will surely improve the quality and worth of our manuscript. 

Please find attached the changes made in manuscript as per your comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a very thorough research study that explains the sustainable organizational innovation in SMEs, role of knowledge management, and organizational learning. I read the manuscript with great interest and believe its topic is important and relevant. Appropriate theoretical framework was applied. I found the methodological part to be well justified and reasonable for this type of analysis. Although the manuscript is overall well-written and structured, it might benefit from additional spell/language checking. However, I have some comments which I would like to be addressed before the acceptance of this paper.

Major comments

Modify the abstract part according to MDPI’s guidelines. The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions. In literature review section, add the relevant literature about sustainable organizational innovation in SMEs, role of knowledge management, and organizational learning with general theory and country’s perspective where this study was carried out. This will provide a solid backing to your hypothesis and it will enhance the interest for readers. Currently, literature review lacks the above mentioned points. Did authors found the Common method bias in the data or not? How many questionnaires were unfilled or discarded? What was the criteria authors used to remove the questionnaire that have some missing or constant responses? Add your questionnaire items in the appendix or at the appropriate place in the manuscript so that it’s easily understandable. Add the theoretical and managerial implications of your study in section 5. Conclusions, Findings and Implications section. Make comparison of your study findings with the past studies in section 5. Conclusions, Findings and Implications section.

I look forward to read the final version.

Author Response

Good Morning Respected Reviewer

Thanks a lot for your valuable comments and input. This will surely improve the quality and worth of our manuscript. 

Please find attached the changes made in manuscript as per your comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, congratulations for your excellent job.

Reviewer 3 Report

All my comments are addressed hence, manuscript is accepted.