Research on the Improvement Path of Regional Green Technology Innovation Efficiency in China Based on fsQCA Method

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is very good. In some of the next publications the authors should put more stress on the limittaion of the natural resources.

Author Response

It has been reformatted.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review report on the article “Research on the improvement path of regional efficiency of green technology innovation in China based on fsQCA method”

 

This article studies green technology innovation in China. The proposed work consists of extensive literature review. This paper takes 30 provinces of China as case samples and establishes the evaluation system of efficiency of green technology innovation of each province.

This article is presented in a well-structured manner, and no methodological inaccuracies or inaccuracies within the text or sentences can be noted. The manuscript’s figures, tables and appendixes are appropriate and show the data properly.

The scientific content of the manuscript is clear, comprehensive and relevant for the field. The paper title reflects the content and purpose of the research. Summary and the introduction include information important for understanding the content of the paper.

The main contribution of this article includes development of theory and methodology and practical implications in the field of green technology innovation. The authors used the DEA-Malmquist model to measure the efficiency of green technology innovation, and applied the method of fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) based on the perspective of configuration to explore the multiple paths of driving green technology innovation.

The article notes that the shortage of human resources and poor economic environment are the main reasons to inhibit the improvement of efficiency of green technology innovation, and the configuration of high and non-high efficiency of green technology innovation is asymmetrical.

The scientific value of the publication would increase significantly, if the authors specified further research on the article related matters.

 

To sum up, the article results provide an advancement of the current knowledge in the study area. The article is well organized, relevant and interesting. All conclusions justified and supported by the results. The article fits the journal scope and should be published as is.

Author Response

It has been reformatted.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your interesting work. Below are my comments:

Majors:

1.      Abstract:

a.       The abstract needs to be revised to clearly provide major findings and their contribution to the literature.

b.      Lines 12-22 seem to be grammatically not correct – run-on sentences        

2.      Introduction

a.       The novelty of this study seems to be missing

b.      I suggest the authors should have one/two sections providing the main findings and their implications theoretically and/or practically.

c.       The literature review section (lines 46-76) should be revised to clearly highlight the research’s gap

d.      This section should have one/two paragraphs explaining how this paper fills the research gap.  

3.      Methodology

Line 107: it seems the authors need citations

Line 105: what are the two double externalities?

Line 114: What is Porter hypothesis? Should have a citation for it and further explaination

Line 117: Which “relevant studies”?

Line 128: what is “ix”?

The whole section (lines 103-133) seems to be underdeveloped and thus needs to be revised extensively to 1) provide the main points -  what are the authors trying to say? 2) provide appropriate citations/references, and 2) ensure grammar and style are used correctly.

I can see multiple errors/ inconsistencies regarding grammar and/or style in this section. It seems to me that the authors need more time to revise the paper before sending it out to the reviewers.  

4.      Results

- The results presented in Table 2 are expected. Please elaborate further about the meaning of them and how are they beneficial theoretically and/or practically.

- Line 264-265: What is “three anchor points”? how was it used in this study and why did it use in this study rather than other methods?

- Line 270: Deap 2.1 needs to have some description about itT. The Software deserves a citation as well.  

- Tables 4 and 5: what do crste and vrste and scale mean in this context? Why Beijing, Hebei and Qinghai have an efficiency value of 1, but other regions have values less than 1? Implications/meanings of these values?

- what is Frontier 4.1? a short description of the software and citation is needed.

- Lines 300-303 needs to be revised. It does not seem its grammar is correct so the sentence seems to have no meaning.

- Line 315: what is the “core condition”?

- Lines 310-322 need to be revised to make it more readable. I do not understand what are the authors trying to say.

Table 7: Why do H1c and NH1b have overall coverage, but other Hxxx?

The rest of the section needs to be revised extensively in terms of grammar and style to make it more readable.

5.      The conclusion section seems to be too long and need to revise to provide concisely: 1) What the study is about 2) major findings and their implications, 3) demonstrating the importance of your ideas 4) limitations of this study and suggest future research directions

Lines 525-582 need to be deleted if they are not used.

 

In general, the manuscript is underdeveloped and thus needs to be revised significantly. 

Author Response

1. Abstract:

 

29. The abstract has been amended to add findings and contribution at 26-29. “Our results are helpful to study the efficiency of regional green technology innovation at the provincial level. In addition, our research results also provide practical solutions and theoretical basis for provinces to promote regional green technology innovation efficiency under the new economic normal.”
30. Lines 12-23 have been corrected.

 

2. Introduction

 

91. The novelty of this study is added to lines 75-91. “To sum up, although scholars have conducted multi-angle and in-depth studies on the influencing factors of green technology innovation, how to improve the efficiency of green technology innovation under the combined effect of multiple factors remains to be explored. The innovation points of this study are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: Firstly, the research methods which existing scholars mostly used are qualitative or quantitative single methods, and existing scholars mostly analyzed from a single influencing factor or the interaction between influencing factors. The use of qualitative and quantitative mixed methods to study the efficiency of green technology innovation is lacking. Therefore, this paper uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to comprehensively explore "qualitative cases" and "quantitative variables", which is beneficial to explore how to promote the efficiency of green technology innovation. Secondly, although existing studies have confirmed that multifactor driving is the key to affect the efficiency of green technology innovation, few studies have explored the relationship between multiple factors and the combination path from the perspective of configuration. Based on the perspective of configuration, this paper explores how to coordinate and promote the efficiency of green technology innovation between the two levels of green environment support and green technology supply.”
92. Major findings added in section 5.Conclusion and Enlightenment “The results show that: (1) There are three ways to effectively activate the high efficiency of green technology innovation, which can be summarized as the driven by economic environment and environmental regulation type、driven by industrial structure and supply of finance type、driven by industrial structure, supply of finance and supply of Manpower type. It is proved that the reasons leading to high efficiency of green technology innovation are diverse and complex. (2) There is one way to generate non-high efficiency of green technology innovation. At the same time, non-high efficiency of green technology innovation is mainly concentrated in the central and western regions, and the shortage of human resources and poor economic environment are the main reasons to inhibit the improvement of efficiency of green technology in-novation. (3) The path to generate non-high efficiency of green technology innovation is not on the contrary of the configuration to generate high efficiency of green technology innovation, which verifies the asymmetry of the empirical results of qualitative comparative analysis.” And its theoretical Significance “Firstly, based on the perspective of configuration and combined with the specific situation in China, we explore the multiple concurrent factors that improve efficiency of green technology innovation. Secondly, the paper reveals the root causes that cause and hinder efficiency of green technology innovation, and finds the multiple promotion paths of efficiency of green technology innovation. Thirdly, the QCA method is innovatively introduced into the research of efficiency of green technology innovation, which broadens the application field of QCA method”。
93. The literature review section has been revised (lines 47-74) and gaps in the research have been clearly identified.
94. Have you explained in lines 75-91 how this paper fills the research gaps “To sum up, although scholars have conducted multi-angle and in-depth studies on the influencing factors of green technology innovation, how to improve the efficiency of green technology innovation under the combined effect of multiple factors remains to be explored. The innovation points of this study are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: Firstly, the research methods which existing scholars mostly used are qualitative or quantitative single methods, and existing scholars mostly analyzed from a single influencing factor or the interaction between influencing factors. The use of qualitative and quantitative mixed methods to study the efficiency of green technology innovation is lacking. Therefore, this paper uses fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to comprehensively explore "qualitative cases" and "quantitative variables", which is beneficial to explore how to promote the efficiency of green technology innovation. Secondly, although existing studies have confirmed that multifactor driving is the key to affect the efficiency of green technology innovation, few studies have explored the relationship between multiple factors and the combination path from the perspective of configuration. Based on the perspective of configuration, this paper explores how to coordinate and promote the efficiency of green technology innovation between the two levels of green environment support and green technology supply.”。

 

3. Methodology
4. Already on Line 104 (originally Line 107), reference has been added “11. LI Q, ZHOU Y, CUNNINGHAM M A, Xu T. Spatio-Temporal Changes in Wildlife Habitat Quality in the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River from 1980 to 2100 Based on the In VEST Model[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology,2021,12(1): 231680928.”。
5. Explained on lines 98-103 (originally Line 105) two double externalities. “Due to the double externality of green technology innovation, including the negative externalities of knowledge spillover and the positive externalities of environmental protection. Negative externality means that the innovation income from high R&D investment will also benefit other enterprises. Positive externality means that the social benefits generated by environmental pollution control are greater than the private benefits”。
6. It is explained on lines 112-14 (formerly Line 114) “Porter hypothesis“, “The Porter hypothesis states that appropriate environmental regulation will spur technology innovation” And add a reference “12. ZHANG C Z, YUAN L G. Heterogeneous Impact of Yangtze River Protection Policy on the Performance of Listed Industrial Enterprises Based on the Porter Hypothesis [J]. Science and Technology Management Research,2022,42(20):39-47.”。
7. A reference to "relevant studies" has been inserted on Line 118 (formerly Line 117) “13. ZHANG T R, CHEN J L, PAN Q et al. An Evaluation Scheme for Government Information Disclosure Quality from a “Government public” Perspective [J/OL]. Intelligence Theory and practice,2022,(12):1-11.”。
8. Changed "ix" on Line 123 (original Line 128)。
9. Corrected lines 102-140 (original lines 103-133) : 1) Add main points at the end of each paragraph. “To sum up, there is a correlation between economic environment and green technology innovation efficiency. “ Therefore, the policy environment can promote the efficiency of green technology in-novation.” “Therefore, industrial structure helps to improve the efficiency of green technology in-novation.” 2) appropriate citations have been provided, References 10-14. 3) ensure grammar and style are used correctly.

 

4. Results
5. The function for Table 2 has been added on lines 269-270 “According to Table 2, there are positive correlations between input and output variables, which meets the requirements of three-stage DEA.” . Correlation analysis focuses on confirming the correlation between variables, and the analysis part is in 4.2 and 4.3.
6. Added citation in Line 261-262, “three anchor points” Based on previous research by scholars, “25. BARBARA V,JAN, D. Analyzing Relationships of Necessity not just in Kind but also in Degree: Complementing fsQCA With NCA. [J].Sociological Methods & Research.2018,47:872-899.”。
7. Reference "has been added at line 273.“26. STEPHEN D, RICHARD H. Frontier 4.1: A Computer Program for Stochastic Frontier Production and Cost Function Estimation[J]. The Economic Journal,1999,109(456): 453-458.”，Deap 2.1 Methods are described in 3.1. Research Methods.
8. Added on lines 275-277: Explanation of "crste and vrste and scale" “Note: crste、vrste、scale are respectively comprehensive technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency; "drs", "-" and "irs" respectively indicate diminishing, constant and in-creasing returns to scale.”。“Beijing, Hebei and Qinghai have an efficiency value ，other regions have values less than 1.”Their values are the result of Deap 2.1 software。
9. the short description of the software and citation "of Frontier 4.1 has been added on lines 286-288. “Frontier4.1 is a software specifically designed to complete Stochastic Frontier analysis. It can estimate Stochastic Frontier Cost Model and stochastic frontier Pro-duction Model using the stochastic frontier cost model with maximum likelihood method”，“27. PARK Y K, FISS P C, SAWY O E. Theorizing the Multiplicity of Digital Phenomena: The Ecology of Configurations, Causal Recipes, and Guidelines for Applying QCA[J].Management Information Systems Quarterly,2020,44(4):1-17.”
10. Lines 305-307 (original lines 300-303) have been corrected. “The comprehensive efficiency value is taken as the result variable and fsQCA is used for configuration analysis. A single conditional necessity test is performed, as shown in Table 6. ”
11. The quotation has been added in line 314-322 and a brief explanation has been made. This is called "core condition", which is an important influencing factor calculated by QCA method “PARK Y K, FISS P C, SAWY O E. Theorizing the Multiplicity of Digital Phenomena: The Ecology of Configurations, Causal Recipes, and Guidelines for Applying QCA[J].Management Information Systems Quarterly,2020,44(4):1-17”. So it be defined as the core condition。
12. Lines 314-322 have been amended. “When fsQCA 3.0 software is used for exploration, the consistency threshold is set as 0.8 and the case threshold is set as 1 to obtain the configuration that generates high green technology innovation efficiency. According to the study of Park[28], when condition appears both in the intermediate solution and the simple solution, it is defined as a core condition. The core condition has an important influence on high efficiency of green technology innovation. The condition that appears in the intermediate solution but not in the simple solution is defined as the auxiliary condition. The condition that does not appear in the simple solution and the intermediate solution is regarded as whether the condition exists or not.”
13. The reasons for H1c and NH1b coverage have been explained in lines 325-326 “When reporting, you can combine the configurations with the same core conditions into the same type”.

 

5. The conclusion section
6. What the study is about（Line 427-430）“In this paper, 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China are taken as research cases, and fsQCA is used to analyze the multiple concurrent causal relationships and multiple paths of efficiency of green technology innovation.”
7. major findings and their implications（Line 4330-441）“The results show that: (1) There are three ways to effectively activate the high efficiency of green technology innovation, which can be summarized as the driven by economic environment and environmental regulation type、driven by industrial structure and supply of finance type、driven by industrial structure, supply of finance and supply of Manpower type. It is proved that the reasons leading to high efficiency of green technology innovation are diverse and complex. (2) There is one way to generate non-high efficiency of green technology innovation. At the same time, non-high efficiency of green technology innovation is mainly concentrated in the central and western regions, and the shortage of human resources and poor economic environment are the main reasons to inhibit the improvement of efficiency of green technology in-novation. (3) The path to generate non-high efficiency of green technology innovation is not on the contrary of the configuration to generate high efficiency of green technology innovation, which verifies the asymmetry of the empirical results of qualitative comparative analysis.”
8. demonstrating the importance of your ideas. （Line 444-451）“Firstly, based on the perspective of configuration and combined with the specific situation in China, we explore the multiple concurrent factors that improve efficiency of green technology innovation. Secondly, the paper reveals the root causes that cause and hinder efficiency of green technology innovation, and finds the multiple promotion paths of efficiency of green technology innovation. Thirdly, the QCA method is innovatively introduced into the research of efficiency of green technology innovation, which broadens the application field of QCA method.”
9. limitations of this study and suggest future research directions.( Line 483-492)“5.4 Limitations and Prospects First of all, the research object of this paper is the province, but the impact of subdivision region and industry on the research conclusion is not considered. Future re-search can select specific region and industry to discuss. Secondly, based on the perspective of configuration, this paper studies the antecedent variables of green technology innovation efficiency, but limited by the number of variables, whether other factors affect green technology innovation efficiency needs to be further studied. Finally, future studies can be combined with dynamic QCA to carry out research on con-figuration evolution and explore effective ways to drive green technology innovation development of provinces under the new normal.”

 

Lines 525-582 have been deleted.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks to the authors for providing a revised version of the manuscript. However, I maintain my first assessment that the paper needs to have an extensive editing of the English langue and style to improve its readability.

Author Response

I have found a professional person to correct, thank you for your opinion.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you so much for providing a revised manuscript, which is much more readable than the previous version. However, I still think the paper needs at least one more round of substantial revision to make it more readable.

I would revise the results and novelty sections of this manuscript. The two sections are so general now. 

I also think the authors should revisit all the definitions/terminologies used in this manuscript to ensure they indicate what the authors want to say. For example, I would surely review the definition of positive and negative externalities - if the definitions deviate from typical externalities that economists agree on - detailed explanations (with citations/sources) should be provided.   

Author Response

1. In this manuscript a substantial revision has been made to make it more readable.

2.The results and novelty sections of this manuscript have been corrected.(Results :In this paper, 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in China are taken as research cases, and fsQCA is used to analyze the multiple concurrent causal relationships and multiple paths of green technology innovation efficiency. The results show that: (1) There are three ways to effectively activate the high green technology innovation efficiency, which can be summarized as the driven by economic environment and environmental regulation type、driven by industrial structure and supply of finance type、driven by industrial structure, supply of finance and supply of man-power type. The results confirm that the reasons leading to the high green technology innovation efficiency are diverse and complex. (2) There is only one way to generate non-high green technology innovation efficiency. It's mostly in the Midwest. It is mainly the shortage of human resources and the bad economic environment that inhibit the improvement of green technology innovation efficiency.(3) The path to generate the non-high green technology innovation efficiency is not on the contrary to the configuration to generate high green technology innovation efficiency, which verifies the asymmetry of the empirical results of qualitative comparative analysis. Novelty: To sum up, although scholars have carried out multi-angle and in-depth studies on the influencing factors of green technology innovation, how to improve green technology innovation efficiency under the combined effect of multiple factors re-mains to be explored. The innovation points of this study are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: Firstly, most of the existing research methods adopt a single qualitative or quantitative method to analyze from a single influencing factor or the interaction between influencing factors. Therefore, this paper uses fsQCA to all-sided explore "qualitative cases" and "quantitative variables", which is benefit from explore the way to promote green technology innovation efficiency. Secondly, although existing studies have confirmed that multi-factor driving is the key to affecting green technology innovation efficiency, few studies have found the relationship between multiple antecedent variables and outcome variables based on configuration dimensions. This paper discusses how to coordinate and improve green technology innovation efficiency from the two aspects of green environment support and green technology supply based on the multi-factor configuration dimension.)

3.This manuscript has been revisited all the definitions/terminologies (definition of positive and negative externalities: [10]ZHANG C J, HOU M X, CHEN Y Q. Spatial and Temporal Evolution Trend of Green Innovation Efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt [J]. Science and Technology Management Research,202,42(6):51-58. DOI:CNKI:SUN:KJGL.0.2022-06-007.)