Digitalization and Firm Financial Performance in Healthcare: The Mediating Role of Intellectual Capital Efficiency

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The reviewed article aims to examine the impact of digitalization on the financial performance of healthcare sector companies in the EU and how intellectual capital efficiency mediates the process of digitalization's influence on this type of performance. The vital point is the research on about a thousand companies. The paper's main contributions are to provide evidence of the positive impact of digitalization on financial performance and that capital-employed efficiency mediates the relationship between digitalization and firm performance in the case of healthcare sector firms. It is worth enriching this article with more detailed references to earlier studies of a similar nature presented in the literature and concerning companies from other sectors.

 

Particular remarks

Abbreviations must be explained the first time they appear within the text.

Hypothesis H1 is quite obvious and does not refer to any new observation.

The text shows a lack of consequence concerning the way the hypotheses are presented.

There are unnecessary words (repetition) in line 192.

Inconsistency in spelling in Figure 1.

The wrong tense is in line 222.

Bigger tables could be moved to the Appendix section as the way it is presented within the text makes it unclear for the reader.

The Results and Discussion section lacks reference to other publications and research results presented by other authors within the literature.

Titles of sections shall be written in capital letters.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is interesting. However, it needs substantial improvements, especially in terms of empirical study:

- line 230 - the models do not show the effect of the industry variable;

- line 280 - the effect of leverage on performance should be sustained in the literature, as there are theories that defend a different effect;

- line 283 - the study does not mention the results of measuring the effect of time;

- Table 1 - this table can be enriched with a column, indicating examples of studies that used the mentioned indicators;

- line 320 - does not look correct as there is a value of 92%;

- line 369 - Why was the variable ROA chosen for the study of hypotheses and ROE for the robustness test?

- Tables 4 and 5 - What is the meaning of models 4, 7 and 10? How do they differ from model 1? In fact, they are not even mentioned in the results.

Nor are the results of tests on the assumptions of the model included, e.g. heteroscedasticity.

The discussion of the results should also be revised.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx