Within the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem: Is Innovation Clusters’ Strategic Approach Boosting Businesses’ Sustainable Development?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Page/word limitation may be the reason that I don't see more about the codes and key comments from the participants. If the journal allows more content, showing more of the key comments and your codes for the interview responses would strengthen the document. 

The authors mention 'quadruple helix theory' but do not explain or connect the theory to the study. More depth of information about the theory will strengthen the document

Minor writing issues:

line 152-153 'but they fail in attain it by themselves' - please check wording 'fail in attain'

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for having read and assessed our research article. We highly appreciate your kind words and suggestions. In order to improve the quality of our article, we have:

1. introduced more quotes and highlighted them properly, see lines 435-439, 447-450, 517-520, 574-577, 599-607, 617-618, 641-644, 705-712.
2. added more information on this theory, see lines 205-224.
3. added information on the coding process, please check lines 362-370.
4. corrected the English grammar error in using the Gerund, see former lines 152-153, now lines 166-168.

We look forward to our revised paper being accepted for publication.

Yours faithfully,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper brings results of the qualitative research focused on the entrepreneurial ecosystem around the innovation clusters. The paper suits the scope of the journal Sustainability. The structure of the paper follows a structure of a scientific paper; however it needs to be improved.

My comments are as follows:

1. Paper´s aim: state it clearly and unified in all parts of the paper (abstract, introduction, methodology)
2. Abstract: give information about methods used in the research.
3. Literature review: add information concerning entrepreneurship ecosystem – its substance, opinions, definitions….
4. Materials and Methods:

• Research methods by processing research data must be described in more detail
• There are 4 objectives of the research – what is the main aim? (it should correspond with paper´s aim)

5. Results: the presentation of results must be improved. Make it better visible, readable and more attractive, e.g. through tables and graphs, so the results from interviews are clearly presented. The scientific soundness should be much higher.

Formal remark: don´t use “we….” in text.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having read and assessed our research article. We highly appreciate your kind words and suggestions. In order to improve the quality of our article, we have:

1. uniformly stated the aim in the abstract, introduction and methodology, please see lines 13-14, 45-51 and 317-319.
2. given more information on how data was processed, please check the Methodology section, lines 362-370.
3. added more information on ‘the entrepreneurship ecosystem’, see lines 153-166
4. made results more sound by adding more samples from the primary data, check lines 435-439, 447-450, 517-520, 574-577, 599-607, 617-618, 641-644, 705-712.

We look forward to our revised paper being accepted for publication.

Yours faithfully,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is well-structured and able to bring attention to readers. The research questions are well connected and closely related to the topic. The graphical illustration is clearly presented.

Few concerns before moving to publication:

1. More details of the interview questions could be provided.
2. More examples around the globe could be taken into reference for exploring further
3. You may quote more conversation from the participants in the interview to ensure the reliability
4. To have a better presentation, the quotes from the participants in the interview could be highlighted or stated in the new paragraphs
5. More in-depth analysis could be provided to support your discussion. Try to discuss more specifically in response to your research topics.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for having read and assessed our research article. We highly appreciate your kind words and suggestions. In order to improve the quality of our article, we have:

1. enriched the literature review, please see lines 153-166 and 205-224.
2. introduced more quotes and highlighted them properly, check lines 435-439, 447-450, 517-520, 574-577, 599-607, 617-618, 641-644, 705-712.
3. given more information on how data was processed, please check the Methodology section, lines 362-370.

We look forward to our revised paper being accepted for publication.

Yours faithfully,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for making the edits and additions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the reviewing process which added a lot of value to our paper.

Yours faithfully,

The authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper wasn´t revised according to comments sufficiently, it should be improved:

• In abstract - describe „original research instrument“ - give information about method used in the research.
• Research methods by processing research data must be described in more detail
• The presentation of the results should be improved towards better visibility and readability. As it is stated in methodology - lines 366-367 “Then, we transcribed all the categories in a table and we searched for the dominant contents (by both horizontal and vertical analyses of their shares in total responses)“ – these results are not presented.
• Formal remark: don´t use “we….” in text.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for having made a second review. We have completed the changes you suggested. Please consider our additions of:

1. specific information on the used research method in the abstract, at lines 16-17, as well as in the introduction, at lines 68-69.
2. more detailed description of the research methodology at lines 331-334, of sampling at lines 341-344, of data processing at lines 373-377.

and changes to:

3. Section 4: the re-structuring of the results presented; the re-naming of the titles of all the sub-sections to gain more visibility (please see lines 401, 524, 568 and 638); the inclusion of more data from the vertical analyses (please check all the Track Changes within Section 4 and Table 6 at line 581).

Yours faithfully,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper in the second version was revised sufficiently.