Managing Collaborative Risks of Integrated Open-Innovation and Hybrid Stage-Gate Model by Applying Social Network Analysis—A Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have some suggestions to improve the paper.

1.      The abstract should include the method used and some interesting results and implications.

2.      Introduction/

-          Page 2 Line 51 Regarding this statement ''such as an ambidextrous organizational leadership style [6,7], diversity and inclusion [8,9], 51 effectively work in networks of collaboration [10,11] and an effective innovation models [12], successfully drives 52 innovation.'' It is important for the authors to include other recent studies to confirm these important points.

-          Introduction is very long/ the authors need to be concise to avoid confusion for the reader. To improve this part, I recommend focusing on the novelty and contribution of the study. It is also critical to end introduction with the aim of the paper. There is no need to use subtitles in this part. Statistics about the importance of this topic is also essential in the context of the study. Talking about theory used to build the study is also required .

-          I do not think you answered the three important questions that an effective research motive/objective should answer (Grant & Pollock, 2011): Who cares? What do we know, what don't we know, and so what? and What will we learn?

3.      Literature review/

Concrete argumentations that are grounded to theory and rational reasoning are needed. The paper suffers from a weak introduction (unclear research gap and motivation) that doesn't showcase the novelty of the work. Throughout the paper I was also looking for points of both theoretical and literature contribution (theory to support your arguments). While there are traces of both, I am not convinced that the papers offer this at a satisfying level.

4.      Conclusions, implications and further developments/

The discussion and theoretical implications did not provide sufficient new insights. These are just a recap. Key lessons learnt are too minimal to warrant publication. Implications to theory and practice are clearly stated. But as it stands, the paper makes no contribution to either the literature or practice. The author(s) should discuss the findings in light of (Geletkanycz & Tepper, 2012) for best practice.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your instructions to revise the manuscript. Please attached herewith find our revised manuscript of the above referred paper for your consideration and publication in Sustainability. We have thoroughly revised and modified the manuscript according to the comments of all the reviewers. Detailed responses to the comments are listed below point by point. We appreciate the valuable comments. All changes are marked in red.

Response to Reviewer:

1. The abstract should include the method used and some interesting results and implications.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We rewrote the abstract and included the methodology used, results and implications.

2. Introduction/

-          Page 2 Line 51 Regarding this statement ''such as an ambidextrous organizational leadership style [6,7], diversity and inclusion [8,9], 51 effectively work in networks of collaboration [10,11] and an effective innovation models [12], successfully drives 52 innovation.'' It is important for the authors to include other recent studies to confirm these important points.

-          Introduction is very long/ the authors need to be concise to avoid confusion for the reader. To improve this part, I recommend focusing on the novelty and contribution of the study. It is also critical to end introduction with the aim of the paper. There is no need to use subtitles in this part. Statistics about the importance of this topic is also essential in the context of the study. Talking about theory used to build the study is also required.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. Therefore, we reformulated all the introduction section to include the suggested topics – Statistics and theory and other relevant aspects.

-          I do not think you answered the three important questions that an effective research motive/objective should answer (Grant & Pollock, 2011): Who cares? What do we know, what don't we know, and so what? and What will we learn?

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. Therefore, we reformulated the introduction clearing illustrating the objectives of the presented study.

3. Literature review/

Concrete argumentations that are grounded to theory and rational reasoning are needed. The paper suffers from a weak introduction (unclear research gap and motivation) that doesn't showcase the novelty of the work. Throughout the paper I was also looking for points of both theoretical and literature contribution (theory to support your arguments). While there are traces of both, I am not convinced that the papers offer this at a satisfying level.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We reinforced the the aim of this study centqering the researched literature in the two critical important aspects that include the potential Collaborative Risks in Open Innovation using a hybrid-stage gate framework to manage the overall innovative process.

4. Conclusions, implications and further developments/

The discussion and theoretical implications did not provide sufficient new insights. These are just a recap. Key lessons learnt are too minimal to warrant publication. Implications to theory and practice are clearly stated. But as it stands, the paper makes no contribution to either the literature or practice. The author(s) should discuss the findings in light of (Geletkanycz & Tepper, 2012) for best practice.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We reformulated the whole conclusions section. We focused the discussion in the conclusion sections in the benefits of the application of the model in both, theoretical and managerial aspects supported by the illustrated case study.

Reviewer 2 Report

1.     Before moving to specific comments, I would like to advise the authors to see the manuscript structure submitted for publication or an already published paper. The current format of this manuscript should be revised.

2.     The abstract is not well-written and does not provide sound meaning to academic readers. It lacks the methodological approach used, the finding of the study and specific recommendations, and the novelty of the study.

3.     The study was conducted to investigate Managing collaborative risks of integrated open innovation and hybrid stage-gate models. However, the introduction part didn’t properly discuss the relationship between the 2 variables (Open innovation and collaborative risks). The authors should give more information to academic readers on the evolution of innovation and related risks. At the same time, the authors should re-read and re-write the introduction section. There are many fragmented statements

4.      The author should include the rationale for conducting this study, the study objective is not mentioned, and the study gap is discussed

5.      Section 3 should be written as” Methodology and Material used”

6.      Lines between 596-603 are not clear. What is the target data of this study? What sample is used to collect the data? What are the sources of data?

7.      Findings and Conclusions are not supported by the previously conducted study.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your instructions to revise the manuscript. Please attached herewith find our revised manuscript of the above referred paper for your consideration and publication in Sustainability. We have thoroughly revised and modified the manuscript according to the comments of all the reviewers. Detailed responses to the comments are listed below point by point. We appreciate the valuable comments. All changes are marked in red.

Response to Reviewer:

1. Before moving to specific comments, I would like to advise the authors to see the manuscript structure submitted for publication or an already published paper. The current format of this manuscript should be revised.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We changed the structure of the paper to a more standard one. It includes now the introduction, the literature review, the methodology and materials, the case study, and the conclusions and respective implications.

2. The abstract is not well-written and does not provide sound meaning to academic readers. It lacks the methodological approach used, the finding of the study and specific recommendations, and the novelty of the study.

Thank you very much for this point. We agree with this comment; therefore, we totally rewrote the abstract so that is can be meaningful for both academics and practitioners to the extent possible assuring the recommended text size. We included the methodological approach used, the finding of the study and specific recommendations, as well as the novelty of the study.

3. The study was conducted to investigate Managing collaborative risks of integrated open innovation and hybrid stage-gate models. However, the introduction part didn’t properly discuss the relationship between the 2 variables (Open innovation and collaborative risks). The authors should give more information to academic readers on the evolution of innovation and related risks. At the same time, the authors should re-read and re-write the introduction section. There are many fragmented statements

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We rewrote the introduction and discuss the relationship between the 2 variables (Open innovation and collaborative risks) in a more concrete and understandable way to the potential reader.

4. The author should include the rationale for conducting this study, the study objective is not mentioned, and the study gap is discussed

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We reformulated the rationale and the objective for conducting this study and presented it in the introduction.

5. Section 3 should be written as” Methodology and Material used”

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We renamed section 3 according to your suggestion.

6. Lines between 596-603 are not clear. What is the target data of this study? What sample is used to collect the data? What are the sources of data?

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We complete this missing information in section 3 of the manuscript. 

7. Findings and Conclusions are not supported by the previously conducted study.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. Therefore we reformulate all the conclusions section to reflect the importance of the develop model and the application of it in an organizational context.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper discusses a very important topic related to open innovation model.

Although the paper looks interesting, but can be improved with the following comments:

1. Introduction is very long and the reader might lose the point while going through it. 

2.  Again, I find it difficult to follow up on the literature review, why do not you provide a table summarising the previous literature.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your instructions to revise the manuscript. Please attached herewith find our revised manuscript of the above referred paper for your consideration and publication in Sustainability. We have thoroughly revised and modified the manuscript according to the comments of all the reviewers. Detailed responses to the comments are listed below point by point. We appreciate the valuable comments. All changes are marked in red.

Response to Reviewer:

The paper discusses a very important topic related to open innovation model. Although the paper looks interesting, but can be improved with the following comments:

Thank you very much for this point. It really was important to motivate us and continue to develop and improve on the manuscript.

1. Introduction is very long and the reader might lose the point while going through it. 

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. Therefore, we restructured the introduction making it clearer and concrete addressing only the essential.

2. Again, I find it difficult to follow up on the literature review, why do not you provide a table summarising the previous literature.

Thank you very much for this point. We fully agree with this suggestion. We restructured the literature review as well and synthetized in a more concrete way the literature review addressing only the most important aspects that are related with the research conducted in the manuscript.