Review Reports - A Taxonomy of Social-Network-Utilization Strategies for Emerging High-Technology Firms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The objective of the paper " A Taxonomy of Social-network-utilization Strategies for Emerging High-technology Firms" is interesting, but the current version of the manuscript needs revisions before its potential publication.

In the introduction, objectives and/or research questions section would help to summarize and focus the overall aim of the study.
In introduction, it would be good to add one or two strong reasons from literature that would highlight the rationale for examining high-technology contexts and use of social networks. What is different in a high-technology context compared to other entrepreneurial ventures which makes it more important to use digital technologies, especially at the early stage.
What was the theoretical mechanism used to assess and discuss the Social Networking Sites in a literature review? In the initial part of the theoretical discussion, authors have mentioned for example process-based perspective of entrepreneurship and social capital theory.
In the sampling, section add Information about the nature of business of the technology start-ups.
In interview section, authors mentioned semi-structured interviews and thematic headings derived from the literature review. Add sufficient information and references about development of research instrument.
Discussion section lacks to capitalize the theoretical mechanisms that help explain the findings of the study. Again, this is where a stronger literature review would help to strengthen discussion of findings.
Theoretical and practical implications appear to be a bit light. Explanation regarding how and in what ways this research expands theory along with explicitly written practical implications/steps is needed.
Better to have a separate section for theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions and conclusions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for the fantastic feedback provided to our work. This has been very useful and has given us the opportunity to reflect and revise upon your constructive points. Below, we have discussed how we have addressed each of your comments. We hope that you find our revisions aligned with your feedback.

In the introduction, objectives and/or research questions section would help to summarize and focus the overall aim of the study.

In line with your feedback, we have revised our introduction in its entirety and structured it with 5 paragraphs. The structure is as follows:

Background of the paper
Research gap
The objective (research question)
Overview of the methodology
A map of the paper

In introduction, it would be good to add one or two strong reasons from literature that would highlight the rationale for examining high-technology contexts and use of social networks. What is different in a high-technology context compared to other entrepreneurial ventures which makes it more important to use digital technologies, especially at the early stage.

We have included this in the first paragraph of the introduction. For technology-based ventures, access to resources is challenging due to the dynamic and changing environments and the newness of their innovative products. For example, in these contexts, human capital with the skills and knowledge the entrepreneurial team needs is sometimes inexistent or hard to find.

What was the theoretical mechanism used to assess and discuss the Social Networking Sites in a literature review? In the initial part of the theoretical discussion, authors have mentioned for example process-based perspective of entrepreneurship and social capital theory.

In addition to the entrepreneurial literature, we have also included a brief description of the uses and gratifications approach to provide further details on our theoretical lenses and provide a better alignment on how SNS and their affordances are explored in our research.

In the sampling, section add Information about the nature of business of the technology start-ups.

We appreciate this comment and totally agree on the value of providing information on the nature of the start-ups. In this vein, we added a column in Table 1 with the industry and technology of each one of the start-ups. Hope this can be useful for a better understanding of the sample participants.

In interview section, authors mentioned semi-structured interviews and thematic headings derived from the literature review. Add sufficient information and references about development of research instrument.

We have revised our methodology section and included additional details of our research instrument, including references regarding the uses and gratifications and our thematic headings, and examples of our research questions

Discussion section lacks to capitalize the theoretical mechanisms that help explain the findings of the study. Again, this is where a stronger literature review would help to strengthen discussion of findings.

We have now restructured the Discussion section. Section 4 now includes “Findings and discussion” and this allows a stronger connection between findings, the underlying theoretical mechanisms and discussion. Some parts of the previous Discussion section have been moved to the Conclusion section.

Theoretical and practical implications appear to be a bit light. Explanation regarding how and in what ways this research expands theory along with explicitly written practical implications/steps is needed.

We revised our conclusions section in its entirety to make the contribution, limitations, and further research directions more structured, specific, and relevant. The conclusion is now structured as follows:

Overview
Findings
Implications
Future research

Better to have a separate section for theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions and conclusions.

We have included two subheadings in the conclusions section, one for both practical and theoretical implications and another for limitations and future research.

Finally, we would like to reiterate our gratitude to the comments provided by the reviewer. We have also acknowledged this anonymous contribution in our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is studying strategy of social networking utilization by high-tech start-ups.

Research question is interesting regarding information asymmetry.

However, proof of concept is weak. And fig.1 is just a conceptual idea as a consultant level.

Methodology is too simple and not robust.

Analysis is also not enough.

Authors need to consider audience demand.

What is the main question addressed by the research?

Lack of network transparency limits entrepreneurs’ effective utilization of their social networks

2. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?Concept to classify.

3. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?
Statistical or more robust proof is needed.

4. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?
Yes. However, methodology is weak.

5. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.

Present tables and figures are not enough.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for the feedback provided to our work. This has given us the opportunity to reflect and revise upon your points. Below, we have discussed how we have addressed each of your comments. We hope that you find our revisions aligned with your feedback.

This paper is studying strategy of social networking utilization by high-tech start-ups.

Research question is interesting regarding information asymmetry.

However, proof of concept is weak. And fig.1 is just a conceptual idea as a consultant level.

Methodology is too simple and not robust.

Analysis is also not enough.

Authors need to consider audience demand.

What is the main question addressed by the research?

Lack of network transparency limits entrepreneurs’ effective utilization of their social networks

What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material? Concept to classify.

We have revised and restructured our introduction to better illustrate our research gap and contribution. We hope this is aligned with the reviewer’s comment.

What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?
Statistical or more robust proof is needed.

We have revised our methodology and provided further details on our research instrument. We hope the reviewer will find those insights to support the robustness of our research instrument. We note that we have implemented an inductive research approach which precludes quantitative analysis methods such as statistical assessment.

Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?
Yes. However, methodology is weak.

We have re-written our conclusions to provide deeper insights on our contribution, implications, limitations and future research.

5. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.

Present tables and figures are not enough.

We have revised the findings and conclusions to ensure that enough detail is provided to describe the relevance of our tables and figures

Finally, we would like to thank you for your feedback and have acknowledged this anonymous contribution in our manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor and Authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled: “A Taxonomy of Social-network-utilization Strategies for Emerging High-technology Firms”.

The author's approach is a very interesting subject. Social media platforms are an indispensable part of entrepreneurship practices. They offer entrepreneurs a platform for business growth and brand development. Entrepreneurs actively use SM platforms for various purposes: marketing, information search, business networking, hiring prospective employees and learning.

Overall, the topic of this paper is interesting and worthy of publication. The manuscript is clear, and relevant for the field. References to the literature are correct. The research part provides interesting findings. However, there are some elements in this paper, where improvement will be appreciated.

The abstract should also address not only the contributions of the study but also how it is linked to future research.
The purpose of the work is missing. Each article should have a work purpose.
An introduction is a section where we should clearly establish the context for the study. One of the most important functions of an introduction is to answer the question ‘why?’: why was the study performed, and why is it interesting and/or important? The introduction contains main components: general background information, a description of the gap in our knowledge that the study was designed to fill, a statement of study objective, and (optionally) a brief summary of the study but not the result of the research like in yours introduction (line 37-48). This part of the research, you should move to the result section or discussion
The authors used a qualitative study in-depth interviews. Qualitative methods also require appropriate approaches, procedures, and steps. You'll have to explain more about data collection, and methods for qualitative data analysis (was it text analysis?).
In line 398 you write: Building on the scant literature on social media as enablers of networking [7], our study shows that entrepreneurs use SNS when they seek specific resources (…) I am not convinced about the small amount of literature on this topic. Please check:

Nataly Guiñez-Cabrera, Claudio Aqueveque, (2021), Entrepreneurial influencers and influential entrepreneurs: two sides of the same coin, Business International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research
Joo Y. Park Chang Soo Sung and Il Im (2017) Does Social Media Use Influence Entrepreneurial Opportunity? A Review of its Moderating Role, Sustainability 2017, 9(9), 1593; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091593Sustainability

You presented a four-way taxonomy of strategic use of SNS but you only interviewed 19 entrepreneur. It is not clear what the questions were, how the classification took place, and how many similar answers were. Taxonomy is "the theoretical study of the classification, including its bases, principles, procedures and rules” (Kenneth D. Bailey, TYPOLOGIES AND TAXONOMIES An Introduction to Classification Techniques, 1994. SAGE PUBLICATIONS, Series/Number 07-102). A taxonomy is similar to a typology, and many people use the two terms interchangeably. The term taxonomy is more generally used in the biological sciences, while typology is used in the social sciences. So, I am not convinced that the use of the term taxonomy is correct. Therefore please consider this, you can read a very good article:

Nathalie Van RaemdonckNathalie Van RaemdonckJo Pierson (2021), Taxonomy of Social Network Platform Affordances for Group Interactions, Conference: 2021 14th CMI International Conference - Critical ICT Infrastructures and Platforms (CMI), DOI: 10.1109/CMI53512.2021.9663773

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Dear Editor and Authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled: “A Taxonomy of Social-network-utilization Strategies for Emerging High-technology Firms”.

The abstract should also address not only the contributions of the study but also how it is linked to future research.

We have revised the Abstract in line with the reviewer’s comment and have included a sentence regarding future research.

The purpose of the work is missing. Each article should have a work purpose.

We have re-written the Abstract and the Introduction section to include a purpose statement, which is further reinforced by the RQ which states clearly at the line of inquiry driving our study.

An introduction is a section where we should clearly establish the context for the study. One of the most important functions of an introduction is to answer the question ‘why?’: why was the study performed, and why is it interesting and/or important? The introduction contains main components: general background information, a description of the gap in our knowledge that the study was designed to fill, a statement of study objective, and (optionally) a brief summary of the study but not the result of the research like in yours introduction (line 37-48). This part of the research, you should move to the result section or discussion

In line with your feedback, we have revised our introduction in its entirety and structured it with 5 paragraphs. The structure is as follows:

Background of the paper
Research gap
The objective (research question)
Overview of the methodology
A map of the paper

Furthermore, lines 37-48 have been moved.

The authors used a qualitative study in-depth interviews. Qualitative methods also require appropriate approaches, procedures, and steps. You'll have to explain more about data collection, and methods for qualitative data analysis (was it text analysis?).

In line 398 you write: Building on the scant literature on social media as enablers of networking [7], our study shows that entrepreneurs use SNS when they seek specific resources (…) I am not convinced about the small amount of literature on this topic. Please check:

Nataly Guiñez-Cabrera, Claudio Aqueveque, (2021), Entrepreneurial influencers and influential entrepreneurs: two sides of the same coin, Business International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research
Joo Y. Park Chang Soo Sung and Il Im (2017) Does Social Media Use Influence Entrepreneurial Opportunity? A Review of its Moderating Role, Sustainability 2017, 9(9), 1593; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091593Sustainability

Thank you very much for this suggestion. That was our mistake. The adjective “scant” is not appropriate in this context and have changed it to “recent and promising”. Also, we are in debt with your suggestion of new references. These references have been useful for our work, and we have integrated them in different points of our text.

You presented a four-way taxonomy of strategic use of SNS but you only interviewed 19 entrepreneur. It is not clear what the questions were, how the classification took place, and how many similar answers were. Taxonomy is "the theoretical study of the classification, including its bases, principles, procedures and rules” (Kenneth D. Bailey, TYPOLOGIES AND TAXONOMIES An Introduction to Classification Techniques, 1994. SAGE PUBLICATIONS, Series/Number 07-102). A taxonomy is similar to a typology, and many people use the two terms interchangeably. The term taxonomy is more generally used in the biological sciences, while typology is used in the social sciences. So, I am not convinced that the use of the term taxonomy is correct. Therefore please consider this, you can read a very good article:

Nathalie Van RaemdonckNathalie Van RaemdonckJo Pierson (2021), Taxonomy of Social Network Platform Affordances for Group Interactions, Conference: 2021 14th CMI International Conference - Critical ICT Infrastructures and Platforms (CMI), DOI: 10.1109/CMI53512.2021.9663773

We appreciate this comment, which has motivated us to revisit the definition (and debate around taxonomy and typology definitions). As part of this exercise, we have taken the reviewer’s perspective, however, have arrived at the same position we have held in the manuscript, namely, that taxonomies are derived from empirical evidence, and typologies are derived conceptually. Our understanding builds from the same reference provided by the reviewer, and from the below quote taken directly from that resource:

“As an end result, a taxonomy is similar to a typology, and in fact many people use the two terms interchangeably. Here we will reserve the term taxonomy for a classification of empirical entities. The basic difference, then, is that a typology is conceptual while a taxonomy is empirical.”

Kenneth D. Bailey, TYPOLOGIES AND TAXONOMIES An Introduction to Classification Techniques, 1994. SAGE PUBLICATIONS, Series/Number 07-102. Page 5.

We hope that this aligns with the reviewer’s understanding of the reference text also.

Finally, we would like to reiterate our gratitude to the comments provided by the reviewer. We have also acknowledged this anonymous contribution in our manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

Thank you for revising your manuscript. There is a considerable effort made to improve its quality. However, I still have the following concerns:

Again, how do the uses and gratifications approach explain why and how technology-based entrepreneurs strategically use social media to effectively access resources in the early stages of their new venture formation process. What is the mechanism according to the theory which explains this phenomenon? Explain the ‘how’ in the literature review.

It would be good to make some connections to aspects of uses and gratifications approach in the discussion. A good idea could be to see connection between uses and gratifications approach with a taxonomy of SNS strategies and the dynamics of social networks’ management strategies.

In theoretical implications, could be nice to tease out a novel theoretical implication around the uses and gratifications theory (in terms of either its usage or enhancement via this study).

Author Response

We are most grateful for the constructive feedback we have received from the reviewer. We are additionally really pleased that the manuscript has improved as a result of our major revisions we have undertaken previously.

In light of the reviewer's comment pertaining to the uses and gratifications approach, we have now added a sub-section in the literature review section where we elaborate on the Uses and Gratifications Theory, including references to the literature. We in addition continue this line of thought by making minor changes to our discussion and conclusion section of the paper (within the theoretical implications considerations), as suggested by the reviewer.

Once again, we are greatly indebted to the reviewer's feedback.

Reviewer 2 Report

SNS can be useful tool to reduce information asymmetry.

However, methodology and framework as result are too easy and weak for academic proof

Quality may be not enough even for consulting level.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the feedback on our revised manuscript. After careful consideration of the brief comments provided by the reviewer, we believe that the methodology employed in our study is robust and documented with sufficient detail. In this regard, we are mindful that, following the philosophy of science, that any researcher wanting to undertake a similar study as that undertaken by us, would be able to replicate our work confidently by following the detailed steps we have laid out in our paper. As for the framework that results from our study, we once again are in disagreement that it is "too easy and weak". Our reasoning is that the purpose of inductive research is to arrive at, through a quasi-emergence process, a conceptual explanation of an empirical phenomenon. Such a framework, in academic tradition, is able to be improved and elaborated, should it be necessary, through future extensions of the present work. However, the results of our own study serve the purpose of stylizing a complex phenomenon, and provide sufficient insight for stakeholders. On this note, we are in disagreement that our work is comparable to consulting work. The methodological rigor alone warrants a greater appreciation of the scientific merit of our manuscript.

We are nevertheless grateful for the points raised by the reviewer, which has once again allowed us to reassess, and reappreciate our work.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for revising the manuscript. The paper is constructed on a solid base using "uses and gratifications approach" but again the authors need to delve further into uses and gratifications approach and its previous applications to validate its use in literature review and especially in the part on "An Emergent Taxonomy of SNS strategies"in findings and discussion section

Good Luck.

Author Response

We are most grateful for the reviewer's suggestion to delve deeper into the uses and gratifications approach. While we had attempted to address this call in our earlier revision, this added opportunity allowed us to integrate the theory into our paper in greater depth. Specifically, we have extended the paper's literature review section in light of the Uses and Gratifications Theory, but in addition to that, we have connected the findings of our study now more closely to the theory. This we are grateful in particular for the reviewer's feedback. For instance, we have connected the Taxonomy presented in Figure 1 directly to the uses as well as the gratifications associated with entrepreneurs. In our view the paper has benefited greatly from this tighter connectivity.

We are once again indebted to the reviewer and hope that we have addressed the comments sufficiently.