Sustainable and Innovative: How Can Open Innovation Enhance Sustainability Practices?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, I have a few minor suggestions: 1. Reference 17 could be better aligned with the theme of Open Innovation (OI) or justified with more frequently cited articles. 2. I found it difficult to read the text in Figures 1 and 2; I suggest revising these figures for improved clarity.

3. Create a framework or table to summarize the findings of the systematic review.

4. In Section 5.2, I recommend providing more specificity regarding the practical and theoretical implications. Best regards,

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Review report

on the paper 

“Sustainable and Innovative: How Can Open Innovation En- 2

hance Sustainability Practices?”

 

The main objective of this paper is to investigate how OI can enhance sustainability practices. To this end, a systematic review using Methodi Ordinatio was conducted.

This paper brings forth the need for companies to keep up with market competition while addressing the sustainable development aspects of their operations. With the emergence of tools and techniques such as machine learning and artificial intelligence language models, the decline of market entry barriers has prompted organizations to innovate and stay competitive through traditional innovation or employing open innovation (OI).

 

General Comment

 

The structure of the paper is quite reasonable and well balanced.

 

Specific Comments

 

Comment 1

 

Line 167: Enumeration of the presented results in Table 2 would improve the referencing

 

Comment 2

Bujor & Avasilcǎi,2023 reference in Table 2 should not be all in capital

Comment 3

Line 528: In Table 4, similar categories like collaboration and external collaboration or adoption of crowdsourcing and crowdsourcing could be merged

 

English language

Reviewer is not a native English speaker. However, the English used in the paper is in a very good and easily comprehendible level.

Proposal

Accept with minor changes as above reported.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I read your paper with interest. I find that it touches on an interesting topic and worthy of further study. The topic is potentially interesting to the journal readership, and the systematic literature review is relevant. However, despite these merits, the paper has some major problems.

In the introduction, it is noted: “While some authors have provided a rich view of the literature regarding the intersection of sustainability and OI…” These authors should be referenced.

What is the difference between research objectives 2 and 3 in the introduction? It seems they are the same objective.

What are the contributions of the study? They should be identified in the introduction.

What is the advantage(s) of using Methodi Ordinatio (MO) methodology over other methodologies used to conduct a systematic literature review?

The discussion section is missing. In this section, the main areas for future research could be identified and elaborated. One of the main outcomes of any systematic literature review is to identify avenues for future research.

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review the article Sustainable and Innovative: How Can Open Innovation Enhance Sustainability Practices?

It is suggested that the relevance of the study is explained by the fact that small firms may not have sufficient resources to create innovations, so open access to some organizational and technological innovations for these firms could be the only way to make their business more efficient. In addition, the environmental crisis may be an encouragement for businesses to switch to more sustainable models, which could also be provided by open innovations. Therefore, the researchers focus on the relationship between open innovations and sustainable development, noting the lack of modern studies of this relationship. To address this knowledge gap, the researchers conducted a comprehensive review of the latest scientific publications in prominent journals, leveraging the bibliometrix package in R software for data visualization. Through meticulous examination of the primary themes discussed in these articles, the researchers have sought to provide answers to their research questions, contributing to the advancement of the field.

I would like to raise a few questions about the article.

1. In subsection 2.5, was there perhaps a publication date limit? The authors do not mention this, if I am not mistaken.

2. I would be very grateful if you could possibly clarify how the authors defined the topics described in subsections 3.2. and 3.3.

3. On line 321: I would be grateful if the authors could clarify why they concluded that there is "a growing trend" when they did not consider the dynamics of each topic.

4. The Conclusions section is extensive. The authors have mentioned many details, repeating what was written above. Perhaps a shorter version could be considered? Some of the material may be more suitably placed in other subsections.

5. Lines 553-671: It may be beneficial to consider repeating the research questions before describing the results, to ensure the reader is able to follow the flow of the text. This would ensure that the reader does not have to return to the wording of the questions.

I believe that the authors will be able to address these questions and those posed by other reviewers. Once this has been done, the article can be published in Sustainability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My comments are addressed at a satisfactory level.