How Multidimensional Digital Empowerment Affects Technology Innovation Performance: The Moderating Effect of Adaptability to Technology Embedding

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. Here are some observations and feedback that hopefully can help improve it.

 

Abstract

It's better to add a more explicit research aim, the proportion of background at the beginning of the abstract can be further reduced.

Add novelty from this research.

 

Introduction

What is CNC mentioned in the very first paragraph? Please explain the acronym for the first time

At the end of the second paragraph it is written "A literature review shows that the impact on innovation is mainly judged from the single use of a particular digital technology; most studies find that digital transformation can significantly contribute to innovation performance without considering the nonlinear impact of the role of digital empowerment on innovation performance." However, this claim has not been clearly shown by the author in the introduction.

The urgency of why this research needs to be done is not yet apparent.

What is meant by high-end equipment manufacturing, as well as its examples.

Better to write explicitly what exactly are the research aim and research questions of this research?

 

Literature review

It would be better to explain at the beginning of this section how LR is organized to make it easier for readers to understand.

In the Digital Empowerment subsection, the subject and dimensions are explained, but what exactly is the definition of Digital Empowerment? Also its examples. (page 3)

In the Digital Empowerment and Innovation Performance subsection, the terms digital empowerment, digital capabilities, and digital resources are mentioned, what are the differences between these terms, their definitions, and the relationship between one term and another.

What is meant by innovation in this research? Then what is meant by innovation performance? A more explicit definition is needed considering it is one of the main variables in this study.

 

Research Hypothesis

In this section, the authors claim to use resource-based theory, dynamic capability theory, empowerment theory and value co-creation theory, however, there is no clear thread on how these theories become the foundation of thinking in this research. Also why. With that multiple underlying theory does it not make this research blurry, instead of focus.

In the first hypothesis, H1a feels very jumping because suddenly a U-shaped relationship appears, without any explanation in the previous paragraph. What is meant by U-shaped relationship, why, what is its relevance to the explanation of the paragraph before the hypothesis.

None of the references cited support for the hypothesis H1b (page 5).

Hypothesis H1c (page 5), what is meant by platform empowerment? Also H1d ecological empowerment (H1d)

Likewise, the construction of other hypotheses does not seem compelling and needs to be improved.

In the Theoretical Model (figure 1, page 8) the dependent variable is technology innovation performance, again, the definition of this term has not been seen, as well as its dimensions and/or examples. Also synchronization with the previous explanation need attention. In the previous explanation used is innovation performance, but in this section it becomes technology innovation performance.

 

Research Design

What is meant by high-end equipment manufacturing industry?

Is there a sampling frame for this study?

What is the sampling technique used? From the explanation on page 8, it looks just accidental sampling and doesn't use a robust design

How the data is analyzed needs to be explained in this section

 

Empirical Testing and Analysis

Table 4, what are the numbers in bold, also given a star, there needs to be an explanation at the bottom of the table.

 

Discussion

The discussion of the empirical findings (section 5.1) is very short, only about a third of the page (pages 16-17), not in an appropriate proportion to the other sections. This section is one of the core section in the manuscript where the authors have the opportunity to explain the findings and relate them to the existing literature.

The Research Contribution (section 5.2) is minimally related to the existing literature.

Conclusion

Limitations related to context, as well as to methodology such as sampling techniques should be added.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer and Editor,

      Thank you for reviewing this paper. We are grateful to the editor and reviewer for their useful comments and suggestions, which have helped us improve the paper. We hope that this manuscript meets the editor’s and reviewer’ requirements. According to the comments, we made major changes to the paper and resubmitted the paper. Please see the attachment about the details

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present a well-described study that could potentially be of interest to readers of the journal. However, some improvements are needed, which I describe below.

(1) This version of the manuscript does not consider sustainability issues in any of its parts. In fact, nowhere in the text does the term "sustainability" appear. Given the purposes of this journal, it is imperative that the authors identify which implications of their study correlates with sustainability.

(2) In the introduction, the authors should better highlight in degree of innovativeness of their research compared to the state of the art by enunciating gaps directly related to the literature. In addition, it would be appropriate for the authors to formulate one or more research questions to close the literature gaps.

(3) The manuscript lacks a section on the methodology that should follow the literature review and precede the formulation of hypotheses.

The rest of the study is structured with rigor highlighting a good knowledge of the issues analyzed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer and Editor,

Thank you for reviewing this paper. We are grateful to the editor and reviewer for their useful comments and suggestions, which have helped us improve the paper. We hope that this manuscript meets the editor’s and reviewer’ requirements. According to the comments, we made major changes to the paper and resubmitted the paper. Please see the attachment for the details.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1. The name of fig 1 needs to be changed to "Conceptual model" 

2. Hypothesis H1c. Not clearly defended. What level of maturity platform is mentioned by the authors? St 225.

3. Application of multidimensions digital technology needs to be clearly explained 3.1.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Reviewer and Editor,

Thank you for reviewing this paper. We are grateful to the editor and reviewer for their useful comments and suggestions, which have helped us improve the paper. We hope that this manuscript meets the editor’s and reviewer’ requirements. According to the comments, we made major changes to the paper and resubmitted the paper. Please see the attachment for the details.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for following up feedback in previous round. Some notes and feedback for the current version:

- What is the meaning of "recovery rate" in line 572? This term does not seem commonly used to describe response rate of the survey.

- The p[revious feedback on sampling frame seems still unanswered. What is the population of this study? Then whether the researchers has a sampling frame for determining the sample?

- What sampling technique was used? Is it probabilistic or non-probabilistic? Is it random sampling or convenience or accidental or another type of sampling?

- Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.. why not applicable? Isn't the survey in this research involving human participants?

 

Thank you.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer and Editor,

     Thank you for reviewing this paper. We are grateful to the reviewer and editor for their useful comments, which have helped us improve the paper. We hope that this manuscript meets the reviewer’s editor’s and requirements. According to the comments, we made minor changes to the paper and resubmitted the paper.  Please see the attachment and the  the revised content is marked in yellow in the manuscript. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this latest version of the manuscript, the authors have resolved the critical issues. Therefore, I believe that the manuscript is now suitable for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer and Editor,

     Thank you for reviewing this paper.