Research on the Influence of Technological Innovation Enthusiasm on Innovation Performance from the Perspective of Nonlinearity—Empirical Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

First, the authors do not need to thank my previous comments. I just did my job and my interest was simply to help authors developing a good quality article.

Second, I was very pleased with the authors' work. They carried out a serious and objective revision, facilitating my review work. My main concern was the alignment between the results and the theory, which I think has now been achieved.

Well done!

Author Response

Response：

Thank you very much for your hard work in the paper review process. Thank you for your impartiality, objectivity and preciseness. Your suggestions are very enlightening to us.

Best Wishes！

Guiyu Bai

Business School

University of Jinan

Jinan 250002, China

Email: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the documentation effort made by extending the bibliographic landmarks and implicitly the development of the incursion made regarding the current state of knowledge.

I also appreciate the applicative part of the article proposal by extending the econometric model by testing some databases.

Consequently, I appreciate that now this article proposal deserves to be published and therefore I recommend this.

Author Response

Response：

Dear Professor:

Thank you for your guidance and affirmation. Thank you very much for your hard work in the paper review process. Thank you for your valuable suggestions, which have improved the quality of our paper!

Best Wishes！

Guiyu Bai

Business School

University of Jinan

Jinan 250002, China

Email: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Overview

  Based on the sample of Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2019, this paper analyzes the impact of technological innovation Enthusiasm on innovation performance. The results show that there is an inverted U-shaped realtionship between the technological innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance, and CEO succession would strengthen the inverted U-shaped relationship.

Comments

Comment 1: The robustness test in this paper only show that the hypothesis 1 is robust. So the authours should supplement the robustness test results of hypothesis 2.

Comment 2: For moderating effect, this paper only focus on CEO succession, so its content seems a bit thin and should be enriched. In terms of the moderating effect of internal governance factors, besides CEO succession, the separation of ownership,  leadership structure and other factors can also be considered. Additional, the moderating role of external environment also can be considered.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Professor:

Many thanks for your comments about our paper sustainability-1822955. Thank you very much for your affirmation and guidance. Overall the comments have been fair, encouraging and constructive. We have learned much from it. After carefully studying the reviewer’ comments and your advice, we have made corresponding changes to the paper. Our response of the comments is as follows:

Point 1: The robustness test in this paper only show that the hypothesis 1 is robust. So, the authors should supplement the robustness test results of hypothesis 2.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your questions about our robustness test, which we have added to the article for the robustness test of hypothesis two. Please check is as following:

1. In order to prevent the wrong estimation caused by the setting error of the lag period, this paper further introduces the regression results of two lag periods based on the previous lagging period. The results show that the regression coefficient of CEO succession and the square term of technological innovation enthusiasm is -0.008, which is significant at the 1% level.
2. Based on the original data, the property right nature and age of the company are added as the control variables, and the time fixed effect and industry fixed effect are controlled at the same time. The results show that the regression coefficient of CEO succession and the square term of technological innovation enthusiasm is -0.025, which is significant at the 1% level.
3. In 2014, Premier Li Keqiang issued the call of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" at the Summer Davos Forum, and then the country issued a series of policies on innovation. This paper holds that the implementation of relevant policies may have a certain impact on the relationship between innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance. In order to exclude the policy effect, the data after 2014 was adopted to test. The results show that the regression coefficient of CEO succession and the square term of technological innovation enthusiasm is -0.024, which is significant at the 1% level.

（Table 5. Robustness Test of the Moderating Effects.）

Point 2: For moderating effect, this paper only focus on CEO succession, so its content seems a bit thin and should be enriched. In terms of the moderating effect of internal governance factors, besides CEO succession, the separation of ownership, leadership structure and other factors can also be considered. Additional, the moderating role of external environment also can be considered.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.

CEO, as the top executive of an enterprise, plays a core role in the process of strategic decision-making and implementation, which ultimately affects the business performance of the company's strategic decision-making. CEO succession is a complex process, including the resignation of the former CEO, the selection of the new CEO and the evaluation of the new CEO. CEO replacement has changed the internal governance situation and has a significant impact on the efficiency and effect of enterprise strategy implementation. Therefore, this paper selects CEO succession as a moderating variable to focus on its moderating effect on the relationship between technological innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance, and further reveals the complexity and variability of the relationship between the two. It attempts to provide suggestions and references for the design of corporate governance structure and system optimization of Listed Companies in practice based on innovation performance improvement.

In view of the length of the paper and the focus of the research topic, we chose CEO succession as the main moderator to study. Other variables proposed by the reviewers, such as the separation of ownership, leadership structure and external environment, are also very valuable research topics. We will take them as the future research direction, which also gives us new enlightenment and research guidance. Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.

Thank you very much for your affirmation and guidance. This is our revision instructions. We have also made specific revisions in the paper. Please review them. If you have any questions, please point out that we will accept and revise them with open mind, Wish you all the best. We are deeply inspired by your important and meaningful guidance and help. We tried our best to make modifications of the paper, please check it, if there is still room for modification, please point it out to us. Thank you so much.

Sincerely yours
Guiyu Bai
Business School
University of Jinan

Jinan 250002, China
Email: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper addresses an important and topical issue, trying to investigate whether there exists an optimal relationship between enterprise R&D expenditure and innovative output, and how this relationship is affected by CEO succession. Notwithstanding the topicality of the subject, however, the overall scientific soundness and research design raise some serious doubts:

·       The current version of the paper completely ignores the issue of sustainability. Given the scope of the journal the paper has been submitted to the Authors should embed the investigated research problem in the context of sustainability.

·       The literature review is rather superficial and does not provide an in-depth exploration of the undertaken research problem. In particular, it seems to completely ignore some very important aspects of innovative processes that may be crucial for the research design and interpretation of the results, such as risks involved in R&D, lack of straightforward relationship between the values of innovation inputs and outputs, or lags. The literature review should also justify the selection of control variables used in the model (see pp. 5-6)

·       The development of the second hypothesis of the study is also very superficial. In particular, it does not address the essential problem of CEO succession: i.e. why the former CEO is being replaced in the first place? Can it be due to unsatisfactory innovative performance or incorrect allocation of company's resources? Such approach might shed new light on the hypothesized relationship between technological innovation inputs and outputs.

·       In the last paragraph of Section 3.1. the Authors argue that 'the data in this paper are processed with a lag of one period'. Such remark, however, is somewhat imprecise, as it does not explain the details of such approach, especially whether the variable IS is lagged with respect to the variable IP.

·       The formula used to evaluate 'innovation enthusiasm' raises some serious doubts. First of all, it is obviously ignoring the likely differences in size of the companies in a given industry, which in turn may translate to differences in the size technological innovation inputs (TI). Second, the measure itself seems in fact more appropriate to assess a lagged relative proneness of a given enterprise to invest in innovative project rather than the changes in its own 'innovation enthusiasm', as intended by the Authors. Therefore, given the formulated hypotheses the Authors should consider using a measure that would be more focused on the actual changes in innovative behaviour of a given enterprise, without referring to the averages in the industry it operates in.

·     The choice of the number of patent applications as a proxy for innovative performance is also somewhat problematic. The approach adopted in the current version of the paper does not seem to take into account the likely cross-sectional differences between various industries both in the length of R&D processes and distribution of the related outlays in time, which in turn might bias the obtained results. Additionally, given the scope of the study, it would be more appropriate to use the revenues from sales of innovative products as a measure of the actual innovation performance, especially as the Authors intend to investigate the impact of CEO succession on the analysed relationship since it is more likely that CEOs are being evaluated on the basis of the companies' financial performance rather than the number of patent applications.

·     The aforementioned problems with the specification of the econometric models used seem to be reflected in the low values of the coefficients of determination given in Table 3 (p. 8). The current models are able to explain less that 17% of the variation in innovation performance of the examined enterprises, which allows to raise questions about the choice of explanatory variables.

·     The results of estimations given in Table 4 (p. 9) seem to contain additional variables and other specifications of the models which should be explained in detail in the preceding sections of the paper (including the literature review).

·     On p. 10 the Authors argue that their results indicate that there exists an optimal relationship between technological innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance. Given the construction of the formula used for measurement of innovation enthusiasm (p. 5) this would mean, however, that a given company should to keep the level of its R&D expenditure in some relation to the average in a given industry, which does not seem very justifiable.

Apart from the above, the Authors should also address the following minor issues:

·       The correct English version of the book by J. Schumpeter referred to on p. 2 is "The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest and the Business Cycle".

·       Although the language of the paper is generally comprehensible and clear, the manuscript still requires some further proof reading with respect to wording, grammar, and style (e.g. the word ‘enthusiasm’ is often unnecessarily written with a capital letter throughout the paper, whereas ‘r&d’ or ‘m&a’ are written with small letters, which is rather uncommon; ‘innovation performance continuous improvement’ instead of ‘continuous improvement of innovative performance’ on p. 3).

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

Dear Professor:

Thank you for your comments about our paper sustainability-1822955. Thank you very much for your affirmation and guidance. We have learned much from it. After carefully studying the reviewer’ comments and your advice, we have made corresponding changes to the paper. Our response of the comments is as follows:

Point 1: The current version of the paper completely ignores the issue of sustainability. Given the scope of the journal the paper has been submitted to the Authors should embed the investigated research problem in the context of sustainability.

Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion, embed the investigated research problem in the context of sustainability is very important. We have added some background discussion on sustainability in the "Introduction" section of this paper, embedding the survey research questions in the context of sustainability, it also shows the importance of our research to the sustainable development of economy. Please check is as following:

According to the three time points of China's economic development laid out at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China will basically realize socialist modernization by 2035, and its economy will continue to move forward. Development of science and technology, and the sustainable development of China's economy cannot be achieved without innovation. Innovation has become the main driving force for the sustainable development of China's economy. Through innovation and green development, we will promote industrial transformation and upgrading, new urbanization, industrialization and digital construction, and improve the efficiency of re-source allocation, so as to achieve sustainable economic development in China.

Point 2: The literature review is rather superficial and does not provide an in-depth exploration of the undertaken research problem. In particular, it seems to completely ignore some very important aspects of innovative processes that may be crucial for the research design and interpretation of the results, such as risks involved in R&D, lack of straightforward relationship between the values of innovation inputs and outputs, or lags. The literature review should also justify the selection of control variables used in the model (see pp. 5-6)

Response 2: Thank you for your valuable suggestions, we have revised the literature review of the article, we try our best to make an in-depth exploration of the undertaken research problem. Some very important aspects of innovative processes that may be crucial for the research design and interpretation of the results, such as risks involved in R&D, lack of straightforward relationship between the values of innovation inputs and outputs, or lags., we all make specific analysis in the manuscript, we also make instruction about selection of control variables used in the model. Please check is as following and in the manuscript:

2.1. Literature Review

The economist Schumpeter first proposed the concept of innovation in 1934 in his book The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest and the Business Cycle, emphasizing that innovation is the main source of capitalist economic growth. At present, performance is defined from three perspectives: behavior, ability and result. However, based on realistic considerations, the definition of result perspective is the most intuitive, and all behavioral abilities can be reflected through results. This paper chooses the result perspective of performance to measure innovation performance.

After collecting and sorting out the existing literature, the factors affecting enterprise innovation performance can be divided into macro and spectator levels. At the macro level, scholars focus on the impact of market change, economic development level, national culture, policy system and other factors on enterprise innovation performance. For example, Zhang J and Duan Y (2010) [13] took manufacturing companies in mainland China as samples to study the influence of market orientation and enthusiasm on innovation. Disoska et al. (2020) [14] found that after the economic and financial crisis, the reduction of public funds in r&d budgets to a significant decline in enterprises' innovation activities and innovation performance. Kostis et al. (2018) [15] found that the positive effects of discovery culture on innovation came from the positive effects of trust, control, professional ethics and honesty. Wang X and Zou H (2018) [16] pointed out that there are significant differences in the impact of different types of policy tools on enterprise innovation. De-mand-side policies and environment-side policies will inhibit the improvement of enterprise innovation performance, while supply-side policies will obviously promote the improvement of enterprise innovation performance. At the micro level, scholars mainly study m&a, analyst tracking, financing constraints, leadership structure, firm size, board independence and many other aspects. For example, Howell (2020) [17] finds that cross-border mergers and acquisitions of enterprises significantly promoted the quantity of innovation performance of enterprises to a certain extent and have a certain inhibitory effect on the quality of enterprise innovation performance due to the lack of experience or technical barriers faced by China's transition economies. Guo B (2019) [18] found that financial analysts may encourage enterprises to make more effective innovation-related in-vestments, which improves the quality and quantity of enterprises' innovation performance and affects the novelty of their innovations. Hovakimia (2011) [19] found through research that financing constraints are conducive to easing organizational inertia constraints of enterprises, giving play to the guiding role of entrepreneurship, promoting enterprises to search for innovation opportunities, and thus improving innovation performance. Tan et al. (2001) [20] believe that when external risk degree is high, CEO duality can effectively reduce the uncertainty of decision-making, improve the possibility of successful technology creation, and thus contribute to the improvement of enterprise innovation performance. Wakasugi and Koyata (1997) [21] believe that scale expansion provides sufficient R&D funds for technological innovation of enterprises and increases their ability to undertake technological innovation risks, so large enterprises have stronger innovation motivation. Based on the panel data of American listed companies, Lu J and Wang W (2018) [22] proved that the independence of the board of directors has a positive impact on the company's innovation by promoting the risk-taking ability of the management. This is also a basis for the selection of control variables in this paper.

The endogenous growth theory based on R&D emphasizes the important role of R&D investment in the process of economic growth and technological progress, which lays a theoretical foundation for the relationship between R&D investment and innovation performance. However, innovation is a process full of risks. Innovation risks are the risks that enterprises are willing to take to a certain extent in order to achieve expected returns, among which R&D investment is the most prominent. Since the investment of R&D funds into the output of new technology or new products is not achieved overnight and requires a long cycle of operation, R&D investment may not play a prominent role in the current period and can only be converted into operating profit when it enters the sales stage, so there may be a lag effect. How to achieve a balance between strictly regulated "risk control" and improvisational "innovation" is a common concern in academia and practice. There-fore, many scholars study the optimal relationship between R&D investment and innovation performance in an attempt to grasp the balance between risk and innovation. For example, Beneito（2003）[23] proposed that R&D investment can improve innovation performance by guiding original technology innovation, enterprise process reengineering and promoting new products to enter the market. Graham (2013) [24] believed that the blind expansion of science and technology expenditure distorts the allocation of innovation resources, and the excess R&D investment is difficult to be absorbed and digested, leading to low resource utilization, and then hindering the improvement of enterprise performance and productivity development. Therefore, the existence of an optimal level of R&D intensity will promote the maximization of innovation performance [25].

Based on the above literature review, we can find that most of the existing studies study the impact of innovation performance from the external environment and the internal nature of enterprises, no matter from the macro or micro perspective. At present, the research on the optimal relationship between R&D investment and innovation performance has become a hot research topic in current academic circles, based on the initiative of technological innovation to influence the innovation activities of enterprises. Most of the current researches focus on the positive impact of technological innovation enthusiasm on enterprise innovation performance [20-26], but is it really the case? Based on the perspective of CEO change, this paper studies the nonlinear impact of technological innovation enthusiasm on firm innovation activities.

Point 3: The development of the second hypothesis of the study is also very superficial. In particular, it does not address the essential problem of CEO succession: i.e. why the former CEO is being replaced in the first place? Can it be due to unsatisfactory innovative performance or incorrect allocation of company's resources? Such approach might shed new light on the hypothesized relationship between technological innovation inputs and outputs.

Response 3: Based on your suggestion, we have modified our second hypothesis to explore the intrinsic reasons for CEO succession. Please check is as following:

As the highest administrative personnel of an enterprise, the CEO plays a core role in the process of making and implementing strategic decisions [45], which ultimately affects the business performance of the company's strategic decisions [46]. CEO succession is a complex process, including the departure of the former CEO, the selection of the new CEO, and the evaluation of the new CEO [47]. Previous studies have consistently demonstrated that low performance is significantly positively correlated with forced CEO turnover. In order to make the company better adapt to the ever-changing environment, the board of directors has the responsibility and obligation to replace the CEO with low performance, so as to enhance the company's value and protect the interests of shareholders [48]. The deterioration of the company's performance reflects the mismatch between the company's internal conditions and the external environment, which leads to the change of CEO.

First of all, under the leadership of the former CEO, the company has huge path dependence and inertia [49]. To some extent, the board of directors expects the CEO successor to lead the enterprise to innovate and improve the company's performance, so it has a higher tolerance for the innovation input of the CEO successor after taking office. Therefore, the new CEO successor can demonstrate his ability to the board of directors and senior management team members by investing in innovation and achieving significant innovation performance (more patent applications, new product launches). Secondly, after the former CEO dimission, the board of directors will strictly select the CEO who matches the requirements of the listed company in all aspects, regardless of whether the reason for the resignation is normal or not, and tends to strengthen the assessment intensity of the new CEO in the early stage of succession, so as to make the new CEO meet the urgent need of the board of directors to improve performance. Therefore, in the early stage of CEO succession, considering the risk of short-term resignation, CEOs tend to pursue short-term performance to gain the trust of the board of directors. Based on the short-sighted theory of managers, in order to maximize current benefits, CEOs will sacrifice the future development potential of enterprises. Therefore, when choosing innovation activities, they tend to invest in activities with a short period of return and return [50-52], and their "comfortable" innovation projects tend to be their first choice.

Based on the above analysis, we believe that after CEO succession, for the consideration of his career, in the process of making a series of decisions, he usually does not plan for the long-term development of the company until the elimination of career threats. Eliminating career threats means earning the trust of the board by "delivering quick results." Therefore, with the improvement of the company's enthusiasm for technological innovation, the CEO will use his decision-making power and apply his limited resources to his "handy" innovation activities. Therefore, in the impact path of technological innovation enthusiasm on innovation performance, when the technological innovation enthusiasm does not reach the ultra-high level, the emergence of CEO succession strengthens the positive impact of technological innovation enthusiasm on innovation performance. With the continuous strengthening of the enthusiasm for technological innovation, the resources available in the enterprise are becoming increasingly numerous. At this time, the CEO, who has just taken office, has less relevant work experience, or lacks the understanding of the company's business and organizational relationship, so he cannot reasonably allocate the various resources in the enterprise. Therefore, the negative influence of technological innovation enthusiasm on innovation performance level is strengthened. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 2(H2). CEO succession reinforces the inverted U-shaped relationship between technological innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance.

Point 4: In the last paragraph of Section 3.1. the Authors argue that 'the data in this paper are processed with a lag of one period'. Such remark, however, is somewhat imprecise, as it does not explain the details of such approach, especially whether the variable IS is lagged with respect to the variable IP.

Response 4: Thank you for your questions, we make the following explanations: The article will explain the variable (IS) relative to the explained variable (IP) lag one period. After an enterprise invests in innovation, it takes time for the conception of innovation and technological development in the early stage, production development and industrialization in the later stage, so it takes a certain amount of time to realize the output of innovation achievements. Therefore, in this paper, the explanatory variable (IS) treated one stage behind the explained variable (IP).

Point 5: The formula used to evaluate 'innovation enthusiasm' raises some serious doubts. First of all, it is obviously ignoring the likely differences in size of the companies in a given industry, which in turn may translate to differences in the size technological innovation inputs (TI). Second, the measure itself seems in fact more appropriate to assess a lagged relative proneness of a given enterprise to invest in innovative project rather than the changes in its own 'innovation enthusiasm', as intended by the Authors. Therefore, given the formulated hypotheses the Authors should consider using a measure that would be more focused on the actual changes in innovative behavior of a given enterprise, without referring to the averages in the industry it operates in.

Response 5: Thanks to the experts' opinions, the rigorous suggestions have brought us more thinking. The reason for examining industry differences in measuring innovation enthusiasm is that many studies have shown that different industries (such as high-tech industries and traditional industries) have different needs and decision logic in innovation investment, When comparing the innovation input of enterprises in different industries, it is difficult to reflect the innovation enthusiasm of the enterprise when compared with the same industry (it is not accurate and scientific to compare the innovation enthusiasm with the innovation input across industries). For this reason, we refer to Xu et al. (2019), which includes the industry average level to examine the innovation enthusiasm of the company. We think this is a more reasonable measurement scheme, and its advantage is to truly accurately describe the innovation enthusiasm of the enterprise relative to its competitors. If the average level of the industry is not considered, the measurement may be distorted (under normal circumstances, the enterprises with reduced R&D investment in the chip industry may still be higher than the real estate enterprises. This can be avoided after considering the average level of the industry.

In addition, the size proposed by the reviewers may affect and should be considered. We also agree that the size difference will also affect the level of innovation investment to a certain extent. Our solution to this problem is to add the company size as a control variable to the regression analysis in the regression analysis to solve the possible size endogenous problem.

Point 6: The choice of the number of patent applications as a proxy for innovative performance is also somewhat problematic. The approach adopted in the current version of the paper does not seem to take into account the likely cross-sectional differences between various industries both in the length of R&D processes and distribution of the related outlays in time, which in turn might bias the obtained results. Additionally, given the scope of the study, it would be more appropriate to use the revenues from sales of innovative products as a measure of the actual innovation performance, especially as the Authors intend to investigate the impact of CEO succession on the analyzed relationship since it is more likely that CEOs are being evaluated on the basis of the companies' financial performance rather than the number of patent applications.

Response 6: Thank you for your questions about our variable selection, the reasons for choosing the number of patent applications to measure the innovation performance of enterprises are as follows: the innovation performance of enterprises is mainly reflected in the innovation achievements, and the patent is usually the concrete embodiment of the innovation achievements. On the one hand, the total number of patent applications includes design patents, utility model patents, invention patents and other forms of innovation output, not limited to a certain product. On the other hand, from the perspective of the feasibility and reliability of variable measure, the number of patent applications in the same year can reflect the output effect of technological innovation in the same year more comprehensively, which has high practical significance. Innovation is not only the introduction of a new product or a complete replacement of a product, but also a change in one aspect of the product. However, if innovation performance is measured by the change of financial performance, we cannot explain the change of product sales caused by innovation or the change of consumer demand.

Point 7: The aforementioned problems with the specification of the econometric models used seem to be reflected in the low values of the coefficients of determination given in Table 3 (p. 8). The current models are able to explain less than 17% of the variation in innovation performance of the examined enterprises, which allows to raise questions about the choice of explanatory variables.

Thank you for your questions. There are many factors that affect innovation performance. In view of the length of the paper and the focus of the research topic, we chose innovation enthusiasm as the main explanatory variable to study. Other variables proposed by the reviewers are also very valuable research topics. We will take them as the future research direction, which also gives us new enlightenment and research guidance. Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions.

Point 8: The results of estimations given in Table 4 (p. 9) seem to contain additional variables and other specifications of the models which should be explained in detail in the preceding sections of the paper (including the literature review).

Response 8: Additional variables and other specifications of the models are all explained in detail in the preceding sections of the paper (including the literature review).

Point 9: On p. 10 the Authors argue that their results indicate that there exists an optimal relationship between technological innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance. Given the construction of the formula used for measurement of innovation enthusiasm (p. 5) this would mean, however, that a given company should to keep the level of its R&D expenditure in some relation to the average in a given industry, which does not seem very justifiable.

Response 9: Thank you for your suggestion.

The verification of this relationship shows that there is an appropriate space for innovation enthusiasm. In order to maintain better innovation performance, enterprises should not implement overly radical innovation decisions. Based on practical judgment (the first mover and the enterprises with too radical innovation cannot obtain good innovation performance), we insist that the conclusion of this study is in line with common sense. Graham (2013) believed that the blind expansion of science and technology expenditure distorts the allocation of innovation resources, and the excess R&D investment is difficult to be absorbed and digested, leading to low resource utilization, and then hindering the improvement of enterprise performance and productivity development. Therefore, the existence of an optimal level of R&D intensity will promote the maximization of innovation performance. Based on the resource-based view, enterprises develop competitive advantages through their unique resources and knowledge. As the R&D investment of enterprises the increases, the internal resources, new knowledge, and new technology created by the enterprise will increase, and the innovation ability will also be improved, thus leading to the increase of enterprise innovation output. On the other hand, R&D investment pro-motes enterprises to develop, learn and absorb external technical knowledge and creates favorable conditions for enterprises' technological innovation. However, based on practical considerations, we believe that the monotonous positive relationship between innovation enthusiasm and innovation performance is not sustainable, because, in the process of continuous enhancement of technological innovation enthusiasm, enterprises may face two problems.so impact mechanism of innovation enthusiasm on innovation performance should be analyzed and explained from a nonlinear perspective.

Thanks for the comments of reviewers, which made us think seriously. It is assumed that this part of the text has been modified, and we have supplemented relevant discussions to enhance the rationality of this conclusion.

 Point 10: The correct English version of the book by J. Schumpeter referred to on p. 2 is "The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest and the Business Cycle".

Response 10: Thank you for pointing out our problem. We have changed the title of the book in the original text. The specific modification is reflected in the way of revision mark in the manuscript, please check.

Point 11: Although the language of the paper is generally comprehensible and clear, the manuscript still requires some further proof reading with respect to wording, grammar, and style (e.g. the word ‘enthusiasm’ is often unnecessarily written with a capital letter throughout the paper, whereas ‘r&d’ or ‘m&a’ are written with small letters, which is rather uncommon; ‘innovation performance continuous improvement’ instead of ‘continuous improvement of innovative performance’ on p. 3).

Response 11: According to your advice, we have made carefully proof editing of the article. In the process of proof editing, we have found some problems, for example, the case of letters and grammar problem etc. These modifications are reflected in the way of revision mark.

Thank you very much for your affirmation and guidance. This is our revision instructions. We have also made specific revisions in the paper. Please review them. If you have any questions, please point out that we will accept and revise them with open mind, Wish you all the best. We are deeply inspired by your important and meaningful guidance and help. We tried our best to make modifications of the paper, please check it, if there is still room for modification, please point it out to us. Thank you so much.

Sincerely yours
Guiyu Bai
Business School
University of Jinan

Jinan 250002, China
Email: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

After revision, I think this paper can be accepted by Sustainability. 

Author Response

Response：

Thank you very much for your hard work in the paper review process. Thank you for your impartiality, objectivity and preciseness. Your suggestions are very enlightening to us.

Best Wishes！

Guiyu Bai

Business School

University of Jinan

Jinan 250002, China

Email: [email protected]

Reviewer 4 Report

The Authors have addressed all the suggestions given in the first-round review and significantly improved the overall coherence and scientific soundness of the paper. Notwithstanding the above, I would still recommend extending the introduction and conclusions of the paper with respect to linkages between the undertaken research problem and sustainabilty of enterprises.

Author Response

Response：

Dear Professor:

Thank you for your guidance and affirmation. Thank you very much for your hard work in the paper review process. Thank you for your valuable suggestions, which have improved the quality of our paper! According to your suggestions, we revised the related part and extend the introduction and conclusions of the paper with respect to linkages between the undertaken research problem and sustainability of enterprises.

Please check in the revised manuscript. All revisions made to the manuscript are marked up using the“Track Changes” function so changes can be easily viewed.

Thanks again!

Best Wishes！

Guiyu Bai

Business School

University of Jinan

Jinan 250002, China

Email: [email protected]

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents a very simple model of testing two hypotheses, where the contributions are limited.  Also, the technological innovation enthusiasm is measured in terms of R&D, I do not understand the connection between these.  Enthusiasm can be more of a qualitative attribute.  The author(s) fail to develop the constructs and latent variables properly.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper could be judged as very well-written. The empirical research procedures are primarily accurate, and no problems have been found with the basis of the data.

The only regret is that Chapter 4 was summarised as 'Data Analysis and Results Discussion'. It would be better to divide the analysis and discussion into two independent chapters.

Reviewer 3 Report

This article focus on the influence of technological innovation initiative on innovation performance from the point of nonlinearity. The collected empirical evidence is from Chinese listed firms. The topic of the article is very interesting and its strength lies in its topicality. Despite the interest it may arouse in readers, in my opinion the article has serious flaws.

Minor flaws:

The article is full of typos starting at the title (line 4) with two dashes. But also in line 148, with reference to "Carney's et al. (2009) [25]", it should be "Carney et al. [25]". These are just two examples, as the article is full of inconsistencies. It looks like it was written in a rush.

Serious flaws:

The paper´s major shortcoming is the inability to make a link between empirical results and existing theory. Note that the article has 27 references, where the most recent are from 2019 and all the rest are outdated. That is, the results presented do not seem to have any relationship with recent literature. What is the supporting conceptual framework? How to justify the originality of the results given the work already done/published? Without a solid literature review, it does not seem to me that the article has a chance of being approved.

If the authors are given a second chance, I hope they will be able to align the results of the article with the work already done by other researchers.