Survivability Scenario of SMEs in Facing COVID-19 Crisis Based on the Social Commerce Framework

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The model presentation is not very clear.

The action research proposed is not converted to technical language properly. 

How the components customer, platform, merchant, and context associate with each other is not very clear. 

Author Response

1. The model presentation is not very clear

Comment: Clearer version of model presentation on figure 1 (Line 197)

1. The action research proposed is not converted to technical language properly.  How the components customer, platform, merchant, and context associate with each other is not very clear.

Comment: Based on the literature on AR, the technical proper language about AR does not use "We" in its writing. So, we omitted the word "We". The relationship between customer, platform, merchant, and context components is explained in more detail on sub-section 2.2.2 Social Commerce Framework (lines 206-222) and figure 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting, and the researched problem has scientific potential. However, some problems need to be solved:

1. Literature review should include more recent sources (2018-2021) and must be enriched with relevant references.

 E.g.

Ruochen Dai, Hao Feng, Junpeng Hu, Quan Jin, Huiwen Li, Ranran Wang, Ruixin Wang, Lihe Xu, Xiaobo Zhang,The impact of COVID-19 on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): Evidence from two-wave phone surveys in China, China Economic Review, Volume 67,2021,101607, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101607.

Anica Iancu, Luminita Popescu, Anca Antoaneta Varzaru & Costin Daniel Avram (2022) Impact of Covid-19 Crisis and Resilience of Small and Medium Enterprises. Evidence from Romania, Eastern European Economics, https://doi.org/10.1080/00128775.2022.2032177

Abuhussein, T., Barham, H. and Al-Jaghoub, S. (2021), "The effects of COVID-19 on small and medium-sized enterprises: empirical evidence from Jordan", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy,  https://doi.org/10.1108/JEC-03-2021-0043

2. The methodology section should better describe and illustrate how the scenarios are constructed.

3. In my opinion, a section of discussion that includes theoretical and managerial implications would be helpful. The discussion section should be built in the context of dialogue with researchers in the literature review.

The article has scientific value and can be published after a careful review of the reported issues.

Author Response

The article is interesting, and the researched problem has scientific potential. However, some problems need to be solved:

1. Literature review should include more recent sources (2018-2021) and must be enriched with relevant references.

 E.g.

Ruochen Dai, Hao Feng, Junpeng Hu, Quan Jin, Huiwen Li, Ranran Wang, Ruixin Wang, Lihe Xu, Xiaobo Zhang,The impact of COVID-19 on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): Evidence from two-wave phone surveys in China, China Economic Review, Volume 67,2021,101607, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101607.

 Anica Iancu, Luminita Popescu, Anca Antoaneta Varzaru & Costin Daniel Avram (2022) Impact of Covid-19 Crisis and Resilience of Small and Medium Enterprises. Evidence from Romania, Eastern European Economics, https://doi.org/10.1080/00128775.2022.2032177

 Abuhussein, T., Barham, H. and Al-Jaghoub, S. (2021), "The effects of COVID-19 on small and medium-sized enterprises: empirical evidence from Jordan", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy,  https://doi.org/10.1108/JEC-03-2021-0043

Comment: I add latest literatures Dai et al. (2021) ;Abuhussein, Barham, and Al-Jaghoub (2021) ;Iancu et al. (2022)  on section 2.2 related works (line 140-144)

1. The methodology section should better describe and illustrate how the scenarios are constructed.

Comment: We explain in more detail the methodology in sub-section 3.1 Scenario Development (Line 298)

1. In my opinion, a section of discussion that includes theoretical and managerial implications would be helpful. The discussion section should be built in the context of dialogue with researchers in the literature review.
2.  

Comment:

1. Theoretical and managerial implications added in sub-section 6.1 (Line 743)
2. Dialogue between researcher with SMEs in sub-section 3.2 (Line 442)

1. The article has scientific value and can be published after a careful review of the reported issues.

Reviewer 3 Report

In this context, I have a question? Which of the other Southeast Asian countries might the results you find for Indonesia apply to? In other words, when considering ethnic structure, traditional structure, religion etc.?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

In this context, I have a question? Which of the other Southeast Asian countries might the results you find for Indonesia apply to? In other words, when considering ethnic structure, traditional structure, religion etc.?

Comment: We added a new section to cover Implementation Possibilities in South-East Asia (SEA) Countries in sub-section 6.2 (Line 764-777)

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper attempts to develop scenarios to help SMEs survive the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the topic is much needed as SMEs face more difficulties than larger enterprises, the methodology of the manuscript is unclear. It seems that the authors developed the scenarios for a specific enterprise, which might not be generalizable to other enterprises. Also, the steps used to develop the scenarios are unclear and therefore the results are not reproducible. 

Title: SMES or SMEs? COVID-19 or Covid-19? Suggest having consistent capitalization for the terms used in the manuscript

Abstract: Provide the definition of SMEs and other acronyms (e.g., ITIL 4) when first using them throughout the manuscript. Suggest adding major findings and uniqueness of the manuscript in the abstract.

General:

- Line 42 small and medium-sized business - Is it the same with SME? If yes, suggest using the same description throughout the manuscript. 

- There are some incidences of "Error! Reference source not found." Suggest revisiting the revised manuscript for this type of error before resubmission

- Resolution for Figure 1 seems a bit low

Author Response

The paper attempts to develop scenarios to help SMEs survive the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the topic is much needed as SMEs face more difficulties than larger enterprises, the methodology of the manuscript is unclear. It seems that the authors developed the scenarios for a specific enterprise, which might not be generalizable to other enterprises. Also, the steps used to develop the scenarios are unclear and therefore the results are not reproducible. 

Comment:

1. We explain in more detail the methodology in sub-section 3.1 Scenario Development (Line 298)
2. The scenario was developed to help SMEs affected by COVID-19 in general but tested on specific SMEs. A clearer step on scenario testing using the Action Research method is described in sub-section 3.2 Action Research Cycles (Line 484-499) based on the research model in figure 1. The scenario testing process is described in section 4. Action Research projects (Line 501-649)

Title: SMES or SMEs? COVID-19 or Covid-19? Suggest having consistent capitalization for the terms used in the manuscript

Comment: Tittle Updated to “Survivability Scenario of SMEs in Facing COVID-19 Crisis Based on the Social Commerce Framework”

Abstract: Provide the definition of SMEs and other acronyms (e.g., ITIL 4) when first using them throughout the manuscript. Suggest adding major findings and uniqueness of the manuscript in the abstract.

Comment: We have provided Small Medium Enterprise (SME), Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) etc. on abstract.

General:

- Line 42 small and medium-sized business - Is it the same with SME? If yes, suggest using the same description throughout the manuscript. 

Comment: Yes, it refers to the same meaning, so we changed the term on line 42 to SME.

- There are some incidences of "Error! Reference source not found." Suggest revisiting the revised manuscript for this type of error before resubmission

Comment: All Error Reference fixed

- Resolution for Figure 1 seems a bit low

Comment: Clearer version of model presentation on figure 1 (Line 197)

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author's have re-organized the article as per the comments. I do not find any significant improvement in the article. I am still worried about the technical modeling of the situation.

Author Response

Review Round 2

Reviewer 1

1. The author's have re-organized the article as per the comments. I do not find any significant improvement in the article. I am still worried about the technical modeling of the situation.
2.  

Comment: This article has been significantly revised to detail the methodology section for scenario development (Line 297-line 506). In this section it has been explained with proper technical language so that the scenario is also reproducible for future research.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper can be published in current form. 

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The paper can be published in current form including the empirical object.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for the effort in improving the manuscript. While the topic is much needed as SMEs face more difficulties than larger enterprises, the methodology of the manuscript is unclear. Although the content is becoming much better, the steps used to develop the scenarios are unclear and cannot be repeated by others. Some suggestions are given below to help further improve the paper by addressing that issue.

There are still instances of Error! Reference source not found. (e.g., Line 300, Line 1034, etc.)

Please proofread the paper a few more times. There are some awkward capitalization instances throughout the paper.

Literature review: What have others done related to social commerce and SMEs? What is the gap that this paper is trying to fill? The research gap of this study should be described as a separate section. The novelty of the study must be clearly stated in the manuscript. The authors may include a review table to indicate research gaps

Please submit both a clean version (track changes accepted) and a track change version in the future to help ease the review process.

Methodology: How did the study decide which ITIL 4 practices to follow? I believe there are more ITIL 4 practices. Therefore, why those four? Why are there six ITIL 4 practices in Table 3? Why not four? How did the authors develop the activities in Table 3? Please provide the relevant information required to ensure the steps undertaken by the study are reproducible. 

Table 3: What is Komponen? Is it "component"?

Author Response

Reviewer 4

Thank you for the effort in improving the manuscript. While the topic is much needed as SMEs face more difficulties than larger enterprises, the methodology of the manuscript is unclear. Although the content is becoming much better, the steps used to develop the scenarios are unclear and cannot be repeated by others. Some suggestions are given below to help further improve the paper by addressing that issue.

1. There are still instances of Error! Reference source not found. (e.g., Line 300, Line 1034, etc.)

Comment: We checked the error once again and fixed it again.

1. Please proofread the paper a few more times. There are some awkward capitalization instances throughout the paper.

1. Literature review: What have others done related to social commerce and SMEs? What is the gap that this paper is trying to fill? The research gap of this study should be described as a separate section. The novelty of the study must be clearly stated in the manuscript. The authors may include a review table to indicate research gaps

Comment:

• The research novelty has been describing on section 2.2 Survivability SMEs by the COVID-19 (Line 133). In this section we define the research gap by reviewing prior research about survivability SMEs by COVID-19 and the social commerce framework.

• But thank you for the comments to add prior research related to social commerce and SMEs. So, we are reviewing about the social commerce strategies and SMEs (include a review table) in section 2.3 (Line 185) to enhance research gap of the study.

1. Please submit both a clean version (track changes accepted) and a track change version in the future to help ease the review process.

Comment:

1. Methodology: How did the study decide which ITIL 4 practices to follow? I believe there are more ITIL 4 practices. Therefore, why those four? Why are there six ITIL 4 practices in Table 3? Why not four? How did the authors develop the activities in Table 3? Please provide the relevant information required to ensure the steps undertaken by the study are reproducible. 

Comment:

• The reason why use ITIL 4 practices to follow is describe on section 2.4.2 (line 233)

• We selected 4 practices out of 36 practices in ITIL 4 that best fit the social commerce framework components (customer, platform, context, merchant) with scenario mapping in section 3.1.1 (line 342-477).

• The detailed step to develop scenario describe in section 3.1 Scenario Developement (line 297-506)

• There are 4 practice mapping results in table 5 as well as in table 6 The Scenario of Survivability SMEs, there are 6 scenario steps but only 4 practices (1 practice may be used more than once)

1. Table 3: What is Komponen? Is it "component"?

Comment: Yes, there is a typo on Komponen. It means component

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is fine

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,
Hope you are doing well even through these tough times.

The revised manuscript has addressed all feedback comprehensively.

Just, there are still instances of Error! Reference source not found. (e.g., Line 812)

Thank you for considering the feedback and suggestions. Take care and good luck in your other research endeavors.