Examining the Relationship between Information Systems, Sustainable SCM, and Competitive Advantage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your paper ‘Examining the relationship between Information Systems, Sustainable

SCM and competitive advantage`. It was intriguing to read your literature review, analysis and to see your conclusions. You addressed an important topic in your research; however, I also have some concerns concerning your work, which I will detail in the following.

1. In the Introduction, it should be mentioned how you conducted your study and the possible impact of the Greek context.
2. I appreciate your literature review, but it is not clear from the text what your study`s purpose was. Although the intention to examine the relationship between Information Systems, Sustainable SCM and competitive advantage is formulated in the title, the Research Methodology and the Conclusions of the article do not support it. At the moment, it is somewhat unclear how you conducted your study. 
3. I would also expect a more weightly presentation of research methodology: the main interview questions (which form the crux of your study), criteria for selection participants, sampling methods, how the data was transcribed, ethical approval and informed consent, when it was decided to stop the data collection, data analysis and methods of extrapolating themes and concepts from the data, and how the results were validated. 
4. Maybe the Greek economic context influences the relationship between Information Systems, Sustainable SCM, and competitive advantage. Nevertheless, the economic context is not described when the author(s) made the research part. The authors should describe the economic context of Greece.
5. The conclusion (description of results) is minor concerning the scope of the research. The conclusions should be extended, especially in the context of the national results.  

I hope these comments are helpful when revising the manuscript, and I wish you all the best for your future research in this area.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The described qualitative methodology based mainly on interviews is insufficient to sustain the research conclusions of the paper. Although the relationships between Information Systems, Sustainable SCM and competitive advantage are intuitive, further research approach is needed.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for submitting your paper to sustainability. Please consider the follwing comments:

1. The paper does not develop a research gap or theoretical contribution, a lot is already known and it remains unlcear why we need another literature review on this topic.

2. Recent academic discussions, such as on the IoT or Industry 4.0 are missing, such as:

Birkel, H. S., & Müller, J. M. (2020). Potentials of industry 4.0 for supply chain management within the triple bottom line of sustainability–A systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 125612.

Sharma, M., Kamble, S., Mani, V., Sehrawat, R., Belhadi, A., & Sharma, V. (2021). Industry 4.0 adoption for sustainability in multi-tier manufacturing supply chain in emerging economies. Journal of cleaner production, 281, 125013.  

3. The topic of IT in SCM is rather well researched, above-named references or recent topics must be integrated to form a clear and current research gap and contribution.  

4. The theoretical concept developed and the methodological approach are unlcear. We do not learn which literature was analyzed and why (a literature review must be replicable) and why those cases were selected, what they are in detail, and how they are generalizable and how results were merged with literature results.  

5. The results are neither unknown nor novel, a discussion with extant literature and a research gap are missing.  

6. Research limitations, suggestions for future research, implications are missing.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your revised paper ‘Examining the relationship between Information Systems, Sustainable SCM and competitive advantage`. You addressed an important topic in your research, maybe the research methodology  can be improved in the future. 

 I wish you all the best for your future research in this area.

Author Response

Thank you for your positive feedback and for your constructive comments allowing us to improve our paper. Additional amendments conducted in section 4 aim at further clarifying our research methodology, which will be expanded through our ongoing research in this area.  

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has been improved. Necessary extension of the methodology was performed.

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback and for giving us the opportunity to ameliorate our paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for your revisions. The following points have not been adequately answered:

The research gap is still unclear. There are several articles already on SSCM and IS/DT/Industry 4.0, what does this paper contribute in detail to those? The authors did not develop their research gap further based on suggested articles or other new literature.

The information on the literature review is incomplete. Either, this is a short background section, or a complete literature review that needs much more information on databases researched with keywords, number of results obtained, selection criteria, etc. The method on the case study, applicability, generalizability etc. is also still not entirely clear.

A clear contribution to literature and academic discussion of the results is missing. The current discussion section does hardly cite papers and seems more like a sum-up. Many statements are unreferenced. For instance, the authors refer to information sharing, but do not cite any paper on it, such as:

Dev, N. K., Shankar, R., & Qaiser, F. H. (2020). Industry 4.0 and circular economy: Operational excellence for sustainable reverse supply chain performance. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 153, 104583.

Müller, J. M., Veile, J. W., & Voigt, K. I. (2020). Prerequisites and incentives for digital information sharing in Industry 4.0–an international comparison across data types. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 148, 106733.

Li, D., Fast-Berglund, Å., & Paulin, D. (2019). Current and future Industry 4.0 capabilities for information and knowledge sharing. The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 105(9), 3951-3963.

A better research gap is required, not a general statement that IS and SSCM are relevant topics. Likewise, discussion, and contribution must be developed that highlight what this paper finds in detail compared to extant literature, not a discussion that merely has references. Method for literature review (alternatively, it is just a background section) and some details on case study must still be enhanced.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I would like to thank you for your comments.

Please find attached my response to your comments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for your revisions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we would like to thank you again for your constructive comments that enabled us to clarify certain points in the paper.