Review Reports - Risk Management Maturity Model for Logistic Processes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewed manuscript contributes to theory and practice of supply chain risk assessment.

The perspective of supply chain (SC) is rarely visible point of view on risk management despite the numerous papers in that field. The cooperation at risk constitute a fundamental for an effective supply chain management. Particular SCs’ links participate in material, financial and information flows and obviously share the profits. However, the idea of risk sharing is not widely understood, therefore, the presented manuscript fills the existing literature gap. As authors stated “the proposed model can be used in production, trade, and even service companies of different sizes and scope of operation”.

As authors stated in the manuscript, logistics processes determine SC’s competitive advantage. The high level of those processes and logistics service parameters are undoubtedly one of the key elements for coordination and management from the perspective of SC professionals. The turbulent economy (or according to authors “dynamic market changes”) and countless disruptions in deliveries result in measurable problems for organizations and SCs. Authors correctly indicate and diagnosed the concepts of logistic risk, system resilience and process vulnerability which are essential to logistics activities. Diagnosis of the current situation in the SC and, therefore, planning of reducing the negative impact of the potential risks is crucial for SC performance.

Authors formulated 5 research questions that is quite a lot as for the manuscript. I see the possibility of condensing questions into three research problems. The first one combine RQ1, RQ2 and RQ4 and informs about risk management maturity in logistics processes. RQ3 and RQ5 seem to be properly formulated. They refer to the identification of risk areas characteristics at maturity levels and the impact that the developed RMM model’s application has on the risk management maturity assessment. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to implement that change.

I find very encouraging the three aspects of the manuscript:
– the global maturity levels of risk management in logistics processes presented in table 1,
– their characteristics presented in table 2,
– scenarios presented in table 5.
Sometimes the boundaries of particular levels in table 1 are fluid but very readable.
In terms of the table 2, I strongly encourage authors to name the particular maturity levels, e.g. “Level 1: ad hoc risk management”, “Level 2: critical events in logistic system management”, “Level 3: selective organizational risk management”, “Level 4: cross-functional supply risk management”, “Level 5: integrated supply risk management”. Then the model would become more homogenous and readable. I leave the decision about a possible update to the authors.

The practical combination of organizations’ maturity modeling and supply chain performance are conducted properly, therefore, the empirical part of the research is a natural consequence of the state-of-the-art analysis. It is worth to emphasize that authors analyzed a broad spectrum of papers that cover a wide range of topics in the presented fields. Thus, the RMMM for logistics processes is essential in order to assess “the level of achievement of identified goals or expected results”.

I could not agree more with the statement “The better the company manages the risks associated with its operations, the better it is prepared for potential adverse events that may occur in its processes”. It even suggests that organization management or even supply chain management is a constant process of overwhelming risk management.

Unfortunately, there are no references to the articles in the field of supply chain integration (SCI). This perspective could improve the entire analysis, however, it is not essential in this manuscript. Maybe in the future research authors would like to focus on that field (SCI) and its links with risk management. It would probably fit the authors’ focus on fuzzy theory into risk maturity levels assessment.

It would be worth to examine on how the presented model may be efficient in the perspective of Covid-19 pandemics. I thoroughly encourage authors of the manuscript to continue research in the above-presented field including the current pandemic-economy crisis situation. As authors stated, the direct observation was carried out just before the pandemics occur. I suppose it would be scientifically interesting for the authors on how their model would fit the situation during the pandemics. Besides, I appreciate that authors chose the automotive sector for the analysis. Its high level of coordination and organization makes it necessary to implement active and précised planning in terms of supply chain management and risk management. Similar situation is with pharmaceutical industry what may be encouraging for authors for further research.

References are accurate and up-to-date. There are minor editing errors, e.g. there is a little repeating in the abstract regarding risk maturity assessment (line 18 and 20). I am not sure if the “definition of maturity models for risk management” is attracting growing attention. I would rather say that “maturity models for risk management” rather than “definition of them” are the field of interests among researchers. Sometimes authors use interchangeably risk / hazard / undesirable event which is not understandable for me – these are not synonyms.

Author Response

The authors are very thankful to the Reviewer for his/her valuable comments and suggestions to our paper “RISK MANAGEMENT MATURITY MODEL FOR LOGISTIC PROCESSES”. We have revised the manuscript taking into account the valuable inputs from the Reviewer. The responses to the comments are submitted in a separate pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is a very interesting piece of scientific work. It is well and logically structured, with all necessary elements such as introduction, literature review, methodology, discussion of the results, and conclusion. Also, the cited literature sources are sufficient and correct, tables and figures are clear and understandable.

I have read the article very carefully and have not found any doubts to critical comment.

In my opinion, the paper should be published in a present form.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

(1) Due to the nature of qualitative research, research methodology should be more rigorous and universally valid, but it is not. Therefore, it is difficult to trust the results of the study and there is no expandability. In addition, it appears that the number of samples is significantly insufficient to generalize the results. And there is no mention of how to get the weights.

(2) It is difficult to compare the results due to the lack of consistency in the risk management area and not providing an accurate definition. That is, the four areas in figure 3 and p7 and the items in Tables 1 and 3 do not match.

(3) In Introduction, the excellence of this paper and the knowledge gap in the preceding studies that this paper intends to fill are not clear. Although it is a well-established field that has been actively researched in previous studies, the value of new knowledge that this paper can add is not clear. What value can be obtained by simply applying the original model, RMMM, to the logistics system? Publication cannot be justified simply because it has never been studied in the literature.

(4) Just combining supply chain risk management and organizational maturity modeling is not sufficient. The authors should explain the benefits of combining these two topics.

(5) In Conclusion, the theoretical and practical contribution of this study should be summarized again. Additionally, the insights and implications of this study should be fully described, and the limitations should be appropriately presented.

(6) The preceding studies included in the literature review are too extensive. It seems desirable to exclude previous research results and citations that are not directly linked to the major contributions of this study.

(7) The abstract is too long. It is desirable to compress mainly on major contributions and actual analysis results.

(8) Please receive English proofreading from a native speaker proofreader. In order to be published in renowned academic journals such as Sustainability, the quality of the manuscript needs to be improved throughout the manuscript. In addition, when using the abbreviation in the manuscript, please make sure to write the full name when using it for the first time.

(9) Please improve your fit and relevance to the journal. I think one possible way is to cite more of the papers published in Sustainability.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

(1) It is difficult to be sure how the results obtained only for the selected company can be generalized to universally valid results. The authors should fully explain in the introduction and conclusions how the results of this study can be generalized.

(2) The authors also stated that the goal of this study is to preliminarily identify the need for information of managers in the field of logistics. However, I am not sure that this level of contribution is sufficient to be published in this journal. Authors should fully explain the excellence of their contributions and whether they are sufficient to be published.

(3) The authors should fully explain the fact that the research methodology of this study follows the academic and rigorous qualitative research methodology at the level that can be universally used in this journal.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate authors' sincere and hard work to revise the paper. Finally, I have one more thing to suggest as follows.

(1) Please provide more theoretical and practical insights and implications in conclusion.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf