COVID-19 Research in Business and Management: A Review and Future Research Agenda
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is very well written, which I appreciate, though I would appreciate it if there were not quite so many words in quotes. Except for "New Normal," I think all the terms quoted in Section 1 can be left as they are, with references, but without the quotes.
There is more demographical information than I expected about the authors of the articles. I'm not sure what to make of this. Maybe add a sentence or two explaining what conclusions the reader should take from the demographic information.
I also find it interesting that, apparently, you didn't find any COVID-19 articles in Sustainability, the journal you're hoping to publish in, other than Piccarozzi et al. (2021). There seem to have been quite a few (c.f., https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=source%3Asustainability+%22COVID-19%22&btnG=), and I'd like to either see them included or a very persuasive explanation as to why they weren't.
I would also like to see a little more about Piccarozzi et al.'s 2021 review, since it's a lit review on the same subject from a year ago in the same journal. What did they find, how do you build on their findings and add new value?
Finally, while this is clearly relevant to the SI topic, I would like to see a brief discussion of how your findings relate to the journal's mission, which is "related to sustainability and sustainable development." Supply chain solutions and "In-America-for-America" programs, for example, could relate to sustainable development (local supply chains, all else equal, being more sustainable than shipping supplies around the world). Maybe a sentence or two here or there as you go (e.g. something relating to sustainability in the discussion of supply chains), maybe a few sentences in the conclusion. This would also be a chance to demonstrate your familiarity with relevant articles in Sustainability.
Overall, this is an impressive paper. Thank you for the chance to review it.
Author Response
Responses to Reviewer #1
The article is very well written, which I appreciate, though I would appreciate it if there were not quite so many words in quotes. Except for "New Normal,"
Response (R): First of all, we would like to thank the reviewer for allocating their time to read our manuscript and provide us with constructive feedback about shortcomings of the manuscript. We have revised the manuscript based on reviewers’ suggestions. The attached file demonstrates the applied changes.
I think all the terms quoted in Section 1 can be left as they are, with references, but without the quotes. There is more demographical information than I expected about the authors of the articles. I'm not sure what to make of this. Maybe add a sentence or two explaining what conclusions the reader should take from the demographic information.
- R: Thank you for drawing our attention to these important points. Importantly, as you can see in the newly revised version of the manuscript, we have taken on board the reviewers’ comments to more clearly show how our study extends extant knowledge. We have also minimized the number of quotes in the paper. We revised section 1 according to this suggestion.
- Regarding the demographic information of the authors, it is quite customary to include two figures (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6) in systematic literature review papers about the demographic information. We added a few lines about the conclusions which can be drawn from these charts. The main conclusion is that the COVID-19 research in the field of business and management is dominated by researchers from the USA and Europe.
I also find it interesting that, apparently, you didn't find any COVID-19 articles in Sustainability, the journal you're hoping to publish in, other than Piccarozzi et al. (2021). There seem to have been quite a few (c.f., https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=source%3Asustainability+%22COVID-19%22&btnG=), and I'd like to either see them included or a very persuasive explanation as to why they weren't. I would also like to see a little more about Piccarozzi et al.'s 2021 review, since it's a lit review on the same subject from a year ago in the same journal. What did they find, how do you build on their findings and add new value?
- R: Following your comments, we have now included multiple articles in Sustainability to improve the analysis. Piccarozzi et al. (2021) is only referred to in section 1 due to its direct relevance and is not included in the sample of 152 papers. We added Goniewicz, K (2020) to section 2 based on the reviewer’s suggestion as a precursor to our work. Based on the reviewer’s suggestion for Piccarozzi et al.'s 2021 as a precursor of our work, we added a summary of this work to section 1 as we did to other works which were published before our work. This change can be seen in the attached file. As for the exclusion of the articles from Sustainability and other journals, this occurred due to the enormous number of publications about the COVID-19 in the field of business and management. As a result, we had to tighten our inclusion criteria. As Fig. 1 illustrates, we only focused on journals categorized under the business and management sub-category of SCOPUS and WoS databases and Sustainability is not categorized under these subcategories. Nonetheless, there are lot of important contributions published in Sustainability and other journals which are not included in our sample which is one of the limitations of our work as described in section 6.1.
Finally, while this is clearly relevant to the SI topic, I would like to see a brief discussion of how your findings relate to the journal's mission, which is "related to sustainability and sustainable development." Supply chain solutions and "In-America-for-America" programs, for example, could relate to sustainable development (local supply chains, all else equal, being more sustainable than shipping supplies around the world). Maybe a sentence or two here or there as you go (e.g. something relating to sustainability in the discussion of supply chains), maybe a few sentences in the conclusion. This would also be a chance to demonstrate your familiarity with relevant articles in Sustainability. Overall, this is an impressive paper. Thank you for the chance to review it.
R: We tried to add some explanations related to sustainability matters as the reviewer suggested in section 4.1.1., and section 6. Sections 4.1.6 and 5.2 also directly speak about problematizing the neoliberal narrative of development and moving toward more sustainable approaches. This was supported by many papers in our sample and is one of the main results of our work.
Reviewer 2 Report
The author's manuscript synthesizing the COVID-19 research in the field of business and management is well-received. The manuscript does a great job introducing the research need, demonstrates a strong methodological approach, and rigor in the analyses/findings. The paper is well-written with a few minor formatting errors in the conclusion section.
Author Response
Responses to Reviewer #2
The author's manuscript synthesizing the COVID-19 research in the field of business and management is well-received. The manuscript does a great job introducing the research need, demonstrates a strong methodological approach, and rigor in the analyses/findings. The paper is well-written with a few minor formatting errors in the conclusion section.
R: Thank you for these very constructive comments and your wonderful ideas that have helped us improve upon our manuscript. We tried to remove the formatting errors in the conclusion section.
Reviewer 3 Report
Revise the title of the article. Is this cover the whole management and business?
Add some latest references in introduction section.
Why you have chosen only Scopus and WoS? Justify.
Kindly add a section for exploring the future research that will help the future researcher.
Add the limitation of review in conclusion section.
Proofread is required
Author Response
Responses to Reviewer #3
Revise the title of the article. Is this cover the whole management and business?
R: First of all, we would like to express our deep appreciation for your very constructive comments we have now changed the title to “COVID-19 Research In Business And Management: A Review And Future Research Agenda.”. We used the term management and business to search the databases. This captures paper labeled as such.
Add some latest references in introduction section. Why you have chosen only Scopus and WoS? Justify.
R: We focus on Scopus and WoS as the two are by far are considered the most comprehensive database of peer-reviewed academic articles.
Kindly add a section for exploring the future research that will help the future researcher. Add the limitation of review in conclusion section. Proofread is required
R: Please see the revised version. We have sharpened the focus of the directions for future research. We have also taken numerous steps to eliminate the errors in the documents. We reviewed the article carefully and tried to remove the problems.
Thank you very much for your constructive comments and insightful suggestions on the previous version of our manuscript. We are, indeed, grateful for your continued support for our study and we hope that you will find the additional changes made to the manuscript sufficient to merit publication.
