The Relationship between High-Tech Industrial Agglomeration and Regional Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Investigation in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear authors,
After careful reading of your study, I feel that there are some portions that require significant improvements. Based on the extent of improvements required, I suggest a major revision. Below please find my detailed comments:
Abstract
- Begin with a brief statement about the broader context of the problem you're addressing. Why is understanding the impact of high-tech industrial agglomeration on regional innovation is important?
Introduction section
- In the first line of second paragraph the phrase “Reviewing existing literature” is redundant.
- In the first line of third paragraph the phrase “According to the existing literature” is redundant.
- While the introduction does eventually state the purpose of the study, it does so relatively late and in a somewhat convoluted way. It may be beneficial to state the study's objectives more explicitly earlier in the introduction.
- Incorporate transition phrases to help guide the reader through your argument and to connect different sections of the introduction.
- Avoid the use of terms first, second, third in the whole text and replace them with the terms firstly, secondly etc.
- In the last paragraph of the section, where you describe the structure of the study, use present tenses and not future.
- Avoid the use of phrase “some scholars”. It I repeated several times in the whole text.
Research hypothesis and framework
- The language and writing style can be improved for better readability. Sentences are often too long and complex, making it difficult to follow the authors' line of thought. Breaking down these long sentences into shorter, more manageable ones would be beneficial.
Research method
- I have some concerns about the soundness of the study since about half of the sample is based on M.Sc. theses. My recommendation is to drop these observations of your sample and to expand this with use cases of other journal articles even beyond Chinese territory.
Results of meta-analysis
- Overall, the authors need to work on providing a clear and concise narrative of their findings, a thorough explanation and interpretation of their results, and more comprehensive implications of their study.
Conclusion and discussion
- My recommendation is to divide this section into two different sections. One for discussion and another one for conclusions.
- The paper can benefit from a summary or a brief overview of the main findings at the beginning of the discussion section. This would help provide a roadmap for the reader to understand the subsequent detailed discussion.
- In this section you should try to provide plausible explanations for the observed relationships. For example, you mentioned that “this study not only scientifically responds to the controversy of the relationship between high-tech industrial agglomeration and regional innovation but also further reveals the inner conduction mechanism between the two”. How? It is not clear to the reader.
- Replace the word “government” with the phrase “policy makers”.
- This section also details several significant findings. While this is good, consider revisiting your data to pull out one or two main points that represent the 'big picture' of your findings. This helps to create a more memorable takeaway for your readers.
- Consider including a statement about the broader implications of your work. How might this be of value to decision-makers or society at large?
I wish you all the best in your revisions and improving your manuscript.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you very much for granting us the opportunity to revise the manuscript entitled "The Relationship between High-Tech Industrial Agglomeration and Regional Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Investigation in China" (sustainability-2691312).The reviewers have provided excellent comments and suggestions which are very helpful and constructive. We have thoroughly studied the comments and made revisions. We sincerely hope that we have addressed all your concerns in the revision. In the following, we provide point-by-point responses to the comments raised by reviewers (see below for details). All the changes in the revised manuscript are marked as red characters. Please see the attachment.
Best Regards,
Lanqing Ge
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is an excellent paper. It succeeds on every level: excellent presentation and reasoning, carefully constructed method and hypotheses, scientific rigor, strong literature review and productive conclusion. I do not detect any bias and the English usage is just about perfect. Congratulations! My only comment is that this paper is for publication in the journal Sustainability and I have not seen in this paper a significant engagement with this concept. While industrial agglomeration and regional innovation can have impacts on sustainability, the variables selected for this study do not point in that direction. The authors did not use the term sustainability in the paper and the two uses of the term "sustainable" are not discussed in depth, but it is used as an adjective that suggests there are better and worse ways of doing industrial agglomeration. I do not understand what the impacts on sustainability are for this study and I would recommend that the authors consider this and develop the applicability of their research to the domain of sustainability in the introduction and conclusion at least, if not in the analysis.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you very much for granting us the opportunity to revise the manuscript entitled "The Relationship between High-Tech Industrial Agglomeration and Regional Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Investigation in China" (sustainability-2691312).The reviewers have provided excellent comments and suggestions which are very helpful and constructive. We have thoroughly studied the comments and made revisions. We sincerely hope that we have addressed all your concerns in the revision. In the following, we provide point-by-point responses to the comments raised by reviewers (see below for details). All the changes in the revised manuscript are marked as red characters. Please see the attachment.
Best Regards,
Lanqing Ge
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors;
I read your article and it is really good. In your study, you have looked at the relationship between industrial agglomeration and regional innovation. As we know, preparing review studies is really a very difficult process and a lot of literature review is required. I would like you to improve your literature section a little more in your study, and it would be better if you add the literature and scanned articles to the findings section of your study in the form of a table.
Best regards
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you very much for granting us the opportunity to revise the manuscript entitled "The Relationship between High-Tech Industrial Agglomeration and Regional Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Investigation in China" (sustainability-2691312).The reviewers have provided excellent comments and suggestions which are very helpful and constructive. We have thoroughly studied the comments and made revisions. We sincerely hope that we have addressed all your concerns in the revision. In the following, we provide point-by-point responses to the comments raised by reviewers (see below for details). All the changes in the revised manuscript are marked as red characters. Please see the attachment.
Best Regards,
Lanqing Ge
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors,
To my knowledge, the manuscript has been improved significantly in comparison with the previous version.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for making the necessary corrections.
