Viable Supply Chain Management toward Company Sustainability during COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

 

I read your paper with great interest as it deals with a relevant aspect of supply chain management, considering the current developments of supply chain resilience. I appreciate that you have spent considerable time and effort collecting the study’s data. Your objective is interesting, and your implications have the potential to contribute to the research field. However, the review (see below) revealed several major and minor areas of improvement to increase the quality of your study. Given these facts, I needed to reject your paper. 

 

Major issues: 

 

Abstract 

• - The purpose of the study is missing. You talk a lot about the problems within the manufacturing industry but the clear problem statement and purpose of your study is missing. 

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Introduction 

• - Most of the introduction is too general and does not deal with the topic. I recommend completely rewriting the introduction and leading to the actual research gap with aspects relevant to the topic. 

• - In this context, the deviation of the research gap is insufficient in its current form. I believe that your results contribute to the literature; however, this does not justify an academic paper. I recommend strengthening the argumentation by deriving the need for research from academic literature. 

• - In addition to the lack of derivation of the research gap, the introduction lacks structure and focus. 

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Literature review 

• - Subchapters 3.2 to 3.9 are numbered incorrectly.  

• - Also, in my opinion, subchapters 3.2 to 3.7 should be subchapters of 2.1 and numbered accordingly.  

• - Regarding the theoretical research framework, I don't understand why the arrows of VSCM affect the five components. 

• - In addition, I feel that the theoretical basis from chapter 3.9 is missing here, and it is imperative that this be incorporated into the framework. 

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Methodology 

• - First you mention that the data sample needs at least 200 responses; in chapter 4.1 you then write that you only received 197 usable responses. So the data sample would be too small after all? How did you deal with this? 

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Discussion 

• - The paper lacks a critical discussion with existing literature. The results are not put into context and reflected. This needs to be supplemented.  

• - In particular, the embedding in the theoretical underpinning is missing, which completely prevents an evaluation of the results. 

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General concerns: 

• - Theoretical foundation and contribution: This is one of the weakest areas of your paper. You haven’t done any effort to anchor your research on a theory and as a result (not surprisingly) you are not advancing theory. Can this be done with a resubmission? It could be done, but it won’t be easy.  

• - Discussion of the findings is generally missing and needs support from external literature. I suggest strengthening the argumentation in this part, particularly concerning the existing paper. 

• - I suggest conducting professional proofreading with special attention to typos, consistency in citations and the usage of smooth English language. 

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Minor issues: 

• - Please explain “Movement Control Order”, “Conditional Movement Control Order”, and “Recovery Movement Control Order” (named in the introduction). 

• - When talking about the PMI, you used the wrong years; also “lack of new demand (new orders) from importing countries, a shortage of supply, and a slow-down in export/import activity” is written twice.

Good luck!

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article investigated an interesting theme related to Viable Supply Chain Management and Company Sustainability. However, there are some points of improvement in the text:

Introduction

1. The Paper is about Viable Supply Chain Management and Company Sustainability. The recent literature exploring these constructs should be presented in the introduction as arguments for the research question and highlighting the research gap. I recommend rewriting the introduction section.

Literature Review

1. The Theoretical Research Framework needs to be supported by the literature review. Therefore, to clarify that, it is necessary to have a subsection for VCSM (3.1) and another for company sustainability (3.2). A section linking VCSM and company sustainability is recommended.
2. I can not find the following citation “This shows that the companies who demonstrated greater viability and flexibility of supply chain in the face of the COVID-19 problem were able to maintain a higher level of business sustainability” in the reference [13]. The citation “claims that supply chain viability is crucial for preserving and boost regional industrial competitiveness in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic” in the same reference [13].
3. The author has identified five critical success factors from SCM literature. Later, the same factors are used as variables for VSCM. Are VSCM and SCM the same construct?

Methodology

1. How many questionnaires were distributed, 488 or 500?
2. Why exactly were 49 questionnaires rejected?

Discussion

1. The discussion section should detail the analysis of the five viable supply chain management practices to make the results more robust.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

 

I read your revised version with great interest. However, I found that a large number of my comments were not taken into account. Attached are more details. There are also comments from the first review that you have ignored or poorly implemented. Given these facts, I had to reject your work. 

 

Abstract 

• The abstract lacks the purpose of the study. The derivation of the research problem comes too short. This is also due to the fact that they do not address a real research gap. I refer at this point to my comments regarding the introduction. 

•  

Introduction 

• You provide a thematically very interesting introduction. However, the derivation of the research problem is simply missing here. Where do you deal with existing studies on your topic in the introduction? Where do you distinguish yourself from these studies in the introduction? Your short, often incomprehensible sentences are far from sufficient. 

•  

Methodology 

• Once again, from my perspective, your data sample is too small. According to Kline (2011) and Weston and Gore (2006), at least 200 participants are usually considered a sufficient sample size for the application of SEM. Either survey or justify using high quality literature why they fall short of the 200 limit. 

• - Kline, R.B. (2011), Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling, Methodology in the social sciences, 3. ed., Guilford Press, New York. 

• - Weston, R. and Gore, P.A. (2006), “A Brief Guide to Structural Equation Modeling”, The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 34 No. 5, pp. 719–751. 

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Discussion 

• The chosen theoretical basis seems completely superficial. Therefore, you also lack a contribution to the literature. You need to integrate the theory much more strongly into your investigation.

Good luck!

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article, in its current form, is appropriate for publication.

Author Response

Thank you for your consideration. I am really appreciate it.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the revision of the paper. In its current form, I see no further need for adaptation.