Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is a conceptual one - it can be improved by adding data.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of co-authors, I would like to thank you for your constructive comments.

Following the receipt of the review report, a revised version of the manuscript is submitted in the Sustainability journal platform. In the following pages we explain how your comments are addressed in the revised version. We tried to address all your comments (Please see the attachment).

We appreciate your consideration of the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Co-authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer's comments to the author:

Dear author / s,

Many thanks for offering your research entitled "Open Business Models for Sustainability: Resource-Based Analysis of Sharing Opportunities in the Electricity Market", aimed to investigating (open) business models in support of circularity in (future) electricity markets.

The article appears well founded in structural and theoretical architecture. However, I have encountered some major issues that make it unsuitable for publication at this stage.

- Starting from the abstract and the introduction, the manuscript should emphasize the research gap it intends to fill, highlighting the theoretical and practical contribution provided.

- Introduction: this section should provide information on the originality of the work compared to previous literature. The potential of the contribution is unclear, furthermore the research design and methodology used should be exploded. Finally, the introduction should clarify the theoretical framework: why do you use resource-based theory?

- Literature review: this section is well constructed. Well done!

- Methodology: This document used a “multi method approach”. However, authors should better clarify the process used, the variables analyzed and, most of all, authors should better justify and support this approach by previous studies. Many statements included in this section are unreferenced.

- Results and Discussion: I suggest using a more critical approach in the discussion of the results, considering the theoretical framework used and the recent literature. In this line, the discussion section should be better defined based on the search gap.

The authors describe the limitations and future avenues of research, but do not conclude the article with some key aspects of their research that would emphasize the original contributions.

-Proofreading
I suggest also a proofreading and a complete revision of the paper, since there are many punctuation errors.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of co-authors, I would like to thank you for your constructive comments.

Following the receipt of the review report, a revised version of the manuscript is submitted in the Sustainability journal platform. In the following pages we explain how your comments are addressed in the revised version. We tried to address all your comments (Please see the attachment).

We appreciate your consideration of the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Co-authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear author(s),

I like the idea of exploring (open) business models in support of circularity in (future) electricity markets. Combining various approaches toward researching a real-life problem has added to the value of your research. Nevertheless, I would like to suggest a few points to improve the early draft:

Please make your abstract attractive to readers (simple sentences without any repetition) and include 2-3 sentences ready to be cited exactly as they are. In 1 paragraph, your abstract should tell the readers why the study is important (maximum 25% of the text), what you did, i.e. your methodology (maximum 25% of the text), and what you found, i.e. main research results and their major implications (50% of the text). This is very important to promote your work because of the growing trend that authors use Google search to find and cite papers based on the abstract (instead of reading the full paper).

What is the specific research stream you have found on the Sustainability journal that can include your contribution? How does the paper push the research forward? Please, be more explicit on this issue. Please add more references from the journal to highlight the threefold contribution mentioned in the text.

You would better highlight open business models throughout the whole text. Otherwise, a significant part of your contribution remains unclear.

In section "2.3. Theories of the Firm: Industrial organisation theory, Resource-based, and, Dynamic capabilities", you have tried to provide readers with more clear insights into the theoretical aspects of your research. Nevertheless, the proposed theories are somehow fragmented, and instead of providing an integrative view, they might confuse the readers. Then, it will be great to re-write this section. By the way, theories such as the RBV are mainly focused on creating competitive advantage. Then, it will be more relevant to connect such an approach to the open business model concepts.

Please add more details about the research methodology section. For instance, you might add the "interview protocol", "sample codes", and all the steps you took to analyse the data.

It is mentioned that "The results of the matrix analysis are validated by two expert members of the Global Observatory on Peer-to-Peer, Community Self-Consumption and Transactive Energy Models.". Do you mean face validity? What about other measures? Did you create a database? If yes, please add more details.

Please compare your findings with those of the others.

Please be much careful about your statements, and try to add references where applicable. For instance, it is mentioned that: "To date, the literature on electricity markets in the future mostly focuses on the trading mechanisms, and hence, here a different view is offered which considers missed opportunities around new market models in the electricity market." Is there any relevant reference to support this argument? If yes, please add.

All this said, I find the thrust of your paper interesting and hope you will be able to make the revisions needed to make it publishable. I certainly appreciate your willingness to submit your work to the Sustainability journal.

Best of luck!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behalf of co-authors, I would like to thank you for your constructive comments.

Following the receipt of the review report, a revised version of the manuscript is submitted in the Sustainability journal platform. In the following pages we explain how your comments are addressed in the revised version. We tried to address all your comments (Please see the attachment).

We appreciate your consideration of the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Co-authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer’s comments to the author:

Decision: accept

Dear author (s),

thank you for submitting your revised manuscript.

I really appreciate the efforts to make all revisions, especially in literature review and discussion.

Now, theoretical background appears more solid and complete, no relevant contribution seems neglected. The flow of literature is consistent and methodology section is adequate.

Finally, results are critically discussed, and some interesting implications are provided.

For these reasons, the paper can be published in this prestigious journal.

Congratulation