An Exploratory Study of How Latecomers Transform Strategic Path in Catch-Up Cycle

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is my pleasure to review this manuscript that explores how latecomers transform strategic path in catch-up cycle. Here is my major comments to this manuscript.

There are some misleading terms, for example, “source of power”, what does power mean in this context? “under the positive utilization of industrial policy”, what does “positive utilization” mean? Is there any “negative utilization”?

This research lacks of the literature in China’s railway tech catching up, without this, we cannot identify the contribution of this research.

Authors present their argument without evidence, for example, in the section 4.2.3, they try to show the role of industrial policy, but we do not know how. As we understand from the figure 2 theoretical framework, industrial policy plays a crucial role for the transformation. Unfortunately, we cannot get any information from their analysis.

And another critical problem is that we do not know any evidence from their interview data in the findings, the connection between data and findings is missing. They said they have coded interview data but did not use it in the analysis. This should be solved before accepting for publication.

And please check typos.

Good luck with the revision.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to greatly thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved our manuscript's presentation.

We summarize our responses to each comment.Please see the attachment.

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting and well elaborated, and gives insight into the strategic path transformation of manufacturing firms, by conducting a case study research. Definitions of the  most important constructs are given.

Specific comments

Line 59. What is meant with ‘The exploratory embedded single-case study adopts in this paper.’?

Line 70. Is figure 1 made from the point of view of developed economies, or from the point of view of emergent economies? According to the text before, there is a difference between latecomers in both economies.

Line 223. Data collection: How did you come up to the quality criterium of construct validity concerning the self-made semi-structured interview list?

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to greatly thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved our manuscript's presentation.

We summarize our responses to each comment.Please see the attachment.

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Congratulations to the authors.

The article is interesting. Reading the article is a bit difficult with the acronyms. I propose an idea to improve it. The bibliography is adequate and up-to-date.

The methodology is interesting.

My recommendations are the following to improve the article:

Authors must include a section or paragraph referring to sustainability according to the journal. The authors should include it both in the literature review and in the discussion and conclusions.

Authors should check the format of the citations. For example, line 79 has been arranged: Lee K (2005)

There are many acronyms in the text. I advise the authors to include an annex to the article in which they indicate the acronyms and their meaning to facilitate reading. It is difficult as the article progresses to have a greater number of acronyms in the text. I believe that the proposed annex is a good idea to facilitate this reading.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to greatly thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved our manuscript's presentation.

We summarize our responses to each comment. Please see the attachment.

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Congratulations, the study is well organized and argued. Also, the topic is very interesting and well described. Excellent graphic quality. I suggest putting well in evidence the innovation of the study in the abstract, introduction, and conclusions. Do not cite too many articles together otherwise, it is not clear the contribution of each article. It could be useful to add a table of nomenclature with the definition of all acronyms used.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to greatly thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved our manuscript's presentation.

We summarize our responses to each comment. Please see the attachment.

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

I propose to complete the references in the charts

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to greatly thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved our manuscript's presentation.

We summarize our responses to each comment. Please see the attachment.

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

there are some issues that should be addressed in detail, for example, implementation of industrial policies, you must go into depth, it is not sufficient if you only list the policies. and check the subtitles in sections please, for example, you titled different sections using the same titles "the implementation of industries".

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to greatly thank you for your further careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which have significantly improved our manuscript's presentation.

We have carefully considered the comment and revised our manuscript accordingly. The manuscript has also been double-checked, and the typos and grammar errors we found have been corrected. Please see the attachment.

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Congratulations to the authors! The authors have made all the changes. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for reviewing our revised manuscript. We gratefully appreciate your precious time and valuable comments again!