Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper examines how institutional requirements for environmental integrity in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) shape the market entry and value creation of climate-tech firms and carbon mitigation project developers. Drawing on a comparative design of the EU, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea that combines a SciVal-based research landscape analysis with a qualitative analysis of policy documents, the study proposes a conditional Integrity–Entry–Value (IEV) structure along three dimensions. The paper integrates credit integrity, firm entry, and value capture into a unified framework, with a solid review of primary documents and restrained argumentation. Nevertheless, several issues remain to be addressed, as detailed below.

• The three cases differ substantially in legal nature and credit type. Table 1 provides no criteria for functional equivalence, and the tabular juxtaposition lacks a binding-force matrix. The authors should supplement a comparative design statement annotating the legal binding force of each case’s documents and clarify how differences between removal-type and avoidance/reduction-type credits are handled.
• The integrity dimension is incompletely covered. Table 2 lists leakage as a coding element, but Table 3 has no independent leakage row; double counting does not systematically address corresponding adjustments, Article 6 authorization, or double claiming; the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles are mentioned only in passing, while the VCMI Claims Code, safeguards, and grievance mechanisms are absent. The authors should incorporate these frameworks and add corresponding comparison rows in Table 3.
• The SciVal analysis lacks transparency. The definitions, search strings, and screening criteria for the combined domains are not reported; the figures 792, 131, and 274 are presented only in text without figures or tables; the incomplete year 2026 is not noted. Section 2.2 states that SciVal is used to specify the three core categories, while Section 2.5 attributes them to the research questions, leaving the source description inconsistent. The authors should provide search strings and topic clusters in an appendix and unify the description of category sources.
• The document samples across the three cases are asymmetric. The label not identified may reflect insufficient material coverage rather than institutional absence, and the difference in evidentiary weight between press releases and statutory documents is not explained. The authors should add a per-case document inventory and unify the wording strength of not identified statements.
• Value creation and value capture are not distinguished. The four functions in Table 5 essentially lean toward capture, while strategic value is underdeveloped; instruments such as ERPAs, forward contracts, buffer pools, and reversal insurance are not addressed. The authors should operationalize the two concepts separately and incorporate discussion of these instruments.
• Section 2.7 commits to a four-fold policy-transfer classification based on the Dolowitz and Marsh framework and an assessment of applicability to Korea, but Sections 3.1–3.3 do not deliver a corresponding table. Policy transfer appears only in Section 4.1 as a one-directional discussion, and types of transfer failure are not addressed. The authors should add a comparison table of institutional functions by transfer classification in the Results section.
• The demand side and claim integrity are weakly analyzed. The Singapore Guidance is itself a demand-side rule, yet its claim rules receive little attention; the role of disclosure and anti-greenwashing rules in shaping demand is not addressed. The authors should distinguish the two layers of credit integrity and claim integrity and add a demand-side conditions row in Table 5.
• The incremental positioning of the IEV is unclear. The paper does not engage systematically with adjacent frameworks such as carbon market governance and credit quality and pricing; among the twenty references there is no methodological basis for comparative case design; the conclusion generalizes to other late-forming markets, yet only two source cases are available and no counterexample is included. The authors should add a framework comparison table clarifying the incremental contribution and specify the boundary conditions for generalization.

Author Response

Reviewer 1 Response

Comment 1:
The three cases differ substantially in legal nature and credit type. Table 1 provides no criteria for functional equivalence, and the tabular juxtaposition lacks a binding-force matrix. The authors should supplement a comparative design statement annotating the legal binding force of each case’s documents and clarify how differences between removal-type and avoidance/reduction-type credits are handled.

Response 1:
Thank you for this important comment. We clarified the criterion of functional equivalence in Section 2.3 and revised Table 1 to identify the legal/binding status and credit/activity scope of each case. We also clarified that removal-type and avoidance/reduction-type credits are not treated as equivalent credit types; they are compared only at the level of common institutional functions such as additionality, MRV, verification, traceability, market access, and value conversion.

Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.3 and Table 1.

Comment 2:
The integrity dimension is incompletely covered. Table 2 lists leakage as a coding element, but Table 3 has no independent leakage row; double counting does not systematically address corresponding adjustments, Article 6 authorization, or double claiming; the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles are mentioned only in passing, while the VCMI Claims Code, safeguards, and grievance mechanisms are absent. The authors should incorporate these frameworks and add corresponding comparison rows in Table 3.

Response 2:
Thank you for this valuable comment. We expanded the Integrity dimension by adding leakage as an independent comparison item and distinguishing double issuance, double use, and double claiming. Article 6 authorization and corresponding adjustments are now discussed where relevant. We also incorporated the ICVCM Core Carbon Principles, the VCMI Claims Code, safeguards, and grievance mechanisms, and clarified the distinction between credit integrity and claim integrity.

Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.5, Table 2, Section 3.1, and Table 3.

Comment 3:
The SciVal analysis lacks transparency. The definitions, search strings, and screening criteria for the combined domains are not reported; the figures 792, 131, and 274 are presented only in text without figures or tables; the incomplete year 2026 is not noted. Section 2.2 states that SciVal is used to specify the three core categories, while Section 2.5 attributes them to the research questions, leaving the source description inconsistent. The authors should provide search strings and topic clusters in an appendix and unify the description of category sources.

Response 3:
Thank you for this helpful comment. We revised Section 2.2 to clarify that Integrity, Entry, and Value were specified deductively from the research questions and relevant literature, rather than being derived from SciVal. SciVal was used only as a supplementary research-landscape tool. We also added the saved Research Area configuration, search terms, analysis date, time window, Scholarly Output, Topic Cluster counts, and representative Topic information in Appendix A, and explicitly stated that 2026 represents a partial year.

Changes in the manuscript: Sections 2.2 and 2.5, and Appendix A.

Comment 4:
The document samples across the three cases are asymmetric. The label not identified may reflect insufficient material coverage rather than institutional absence, and the difference in evidentiary weight between press releases and statutory documents is not explained. The authors should add a per-case document inventory and unify the wording strength of not identified statements.

Response 4:
Thank you for this important methodological comment. We now distinguish statutory and delegated regulatory documents, official policy guidance, market-operator materials, and planned policy documents according to their legal and evidentiary standing. We also standardized the meaning of “not identified” so that it indicates non-identification within the defined core document sample rather than institutional absence. A per-case document inventory has also been added.

Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.4, relevant Tables 3–5, and Appendix B.

Comment 5:
Value creation and value capture are not distinguished. The four functions in Table 5 essentially lean toward capture, while strategic value is underdeveloped; instruments such as ERPAs, forward contracts, buffer pools, and reversal insurance are not addressed. The authors should operationalize the two concepts separately and incorporate discussion of these instruments.

Response 5:
Thank you for this important comment. We now distinguish value creation from value capture explicitly. Value creation is defined in terms of buyer utility, market access, commercialization opportunities, and strategic business opportunities, while value capture refers to sales revenue, price realization, contracts, and repeat transactions. We also added discussion of ERPAs, forward/offtake contracts, buffer mechanisms, and reversal-related insurance as contractual and risk-management instruments affecting revenue predictability, bankability, and value preservation.

Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.5, Section 3.3, Table 5, and the Discussion.

Comment 6:
Section 2.7 commits to a four-fold policy-transfer classification based on the Dolowitz and Marsh framework and an assessment of applicability to Korea, but Sections 3.1–3.3 do not deliver a corresponding table. Policy transfer appears only in Section 4.1 as a one-directional discussion, and types of transfer failure are not addressed. The authors should add a comparison table of institutional functions by transfer classification in the Results section.

Response 6:
Thank you for identifying this inconsistency. We added a new Section 3.4 and Table 6 to report the four-fold policy-transfer classification explicitly in the Results. The identified functions are classified as directly applicable principles, functions requiring institutional adjustment, functions limited at the present stage, or functions requiring new design. We also expanded the Discussion to address uninformed, incomplete, and inappropriate transfer.

Changes in the manuscript: Section 3.4, Table 6, and Section 4.1.

Comment 7:
The demand side and claim integrity are weakly analyzed. The Singapore Guidance is itself a demand-side rule, yet its claim rules receive little attention; the role of disclosure and anti-greenwashing rules in shaping demand is not addressed. The authors should distinguish the two layers of credit integrity and claim integrity and add a demand-side conditions row in Table 5.

Response 7:
Thank you for this insightful comment. We revised the analytical framework to distinguish credit integrity from claim integrity. The demand-side nature of the Singapore Guidance is now reflected more explicitly, including buyer due diligence, retirement, disclosure, claim conditions, and anti-greenwashing considerations. A demand-side condition concerning claim integrity and disclosure has also been added to Table 5.

Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.5, Table 2, Section 3.1, and Table 5.

Comment 8:
The incremental positioning of the IEV is unclear. The paper does not engage systematically with adjacent frameworks such as carbon market governance and credit quality and pricing; among the twenty references there is no methodological basis for comparative case design; the conclusion generalizes to other late-forming markets, yet only two source cases are available and no counterexample is included. The authors should add a framework comparison table clarifying the incremental contribution and specify the boundary conditions for generalization.

Response 8:
Thank you for this important comment. We clarified the incremental contribution of the IEV structure by comparing it with adjacent approaches, including credit integrity, carbon-market governance, credit pricing, and low-carbon business-model research. The contribution of IEV lies in linking Integrity, Entry, and Value through entry-enabling conditions and value-conversion functions rather than proposing a new individual integrity or pricing standard. We also added comparative case-study methodology references and specified the boundary conditions of the framework, emphasizing that IEV is a conditional analytical structure rather than a universal causal model.

Changes in the manuscript: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Table 7, Limitations, and Conclusions.

We sincerely thank the reviewer for the detailed and constructive comments. All changes in the revised manuscript have been highlighted in bold for ease of review.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript examines how environmnetal integrity requirments in the voluntary carbon market (VCM) related to firm market entry and value creation. The research combines a SciVal landscape analysis and qualitative analysis of policy documents from the EU, Singapore and South Korea, and propose an Integrity-Entry-Value analysis structure. 

The topic is timely, but the paper describes more method than it delivers. The SciVal landscape part rarely deliver outputs, an coding scheme and process is not well reported, a policy-transfer classicifcation is promised in the methods but never appears. The manuscript also exhibits English language issues. Therefore, it is difficult to judge whether the findings extend beyond a restatment of the research questions. 

1. The coding procedure: The coding process has no visible output. Section 2.5 specifices operational definitions, subcodes, four functional-effect labels, overlapping ocding and dual-coder consensus, but the results are three narrative tables that read as a structured summary of the sources. No counts, no distribution of effects across cases, no identifcation of provisions. The dual-effect coding described in Table 2 as the analytical core is not demonstrated. With roughly 11 primary sources, coding earns its place only if it yields something a careful reading would not. Eitehr report the ouput (supplmentary coding matrix, summary of dual-coded provisions) or describe the method more modestly and shorten 2.5.
2. The methods section: the method section is long and repetitive. Sections 2.1 to 2.8 run four pages for a small corpus. 2.7 restates 2.1, 2.8 restates the source hierarchy and implementation status scheme third times, 2.3 and 2.4 both cover data srouces, and Figure 1 repeats 2.1. In Table 3 to 5, cells contain full sentences with citations, several in Table 4 are paragrpah length, so the tables read as prose in a grid. Compress cells to short phrases, move detail into the text. 
3. The promised policy transfer classifcation does not appears. 2.7 states that EU and Singapore functions will be classified into four groups (directly applicable, requiring adjustment, limited at present, needing new design). No such classification is presented. Adding it would strengthen the contribution significantly, othersiwe remove the claim. 
4. The SciVal stage: This stage is unclear in purpose and weak in excution. No clusters, trends or figures are reported. Only totals and four hits counts (1, 1, 11, 0), which places after the cliamte that the literature is disconnected, functions as gap evidence. The search is not reproducible (no search details, such as strings, fields or manuscriipt types, so the 792 outsputs cannot be verified), and uses single terms without synonyms. No critical terms such as MRV and additionality were searched at all. I recommend that either replace this section with an enhanced documented bibliometric analysis with an empahsis on the three main themes, or remove Stage 1 and justify the categroies from the litetature, revising Figure 1 accordingly. 
5. Case asymmetry: The Singapor Guidance addresses corporate buyers, so coding supply-side support as "not identified" is largely a result of document selection. Singapore is also a trading hub whose credits mostly oriniate elsewhere, so Entry may simply mean somehitng different there. The conclusion drawn from these gaps in Section 4.1 is not supporatble without broader evidence. Also, broad Korean financing instruments are coded as entry-enabling whilete the EU analysis stays inside CRCF and records early-stagge fiance as "not identified", although the Innovation Fund and CAP carbon-farming support. This may make Korea look most complete. I recommned the authors apply one boundary rule across cases. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript is grammatical but hard to read. Many arguments are carried by abstract noun phrases, like "the securing of integrity, the possibility of participation and the capture of value", many sentences are long and nested, and there are terms never defined, such as value-conversion functions. Also, several terms, such as "climate-tech firms and carbon mitiation project developers" are unncessary repeated. A single umbrella term replacing those reperated would be recommended. Overall, professional or native-speaker editing is needed to shorter sentecnes, concrete subjects, and more coherent delivery. 

Inconsistent capitalization is another issue. Espeically for "integrity, entry, and value". The rule is never stated and not applied consistently. Compunds vary too. For instance, "Integrity-Entry tension" but "entry-enabling". THe convention should be stated. 

Author Response

Reviewer 2 Response
Comment 1:
The coding procedure: The coding process has no visible output. Section 2.5 specifies operational definitions, subcodes, four functional-effect labels, overlapping coding and dual-coder consensus, but the results are three narrative tables that read as a structured summary of the sources. No counts, no distribution of effects across cases, no identification of provisions. The dual-effect coding described in Table 2 as the analytical core is not demonstrated. With roughly 11 primary sources, coding earns its place only if it yields something a careful reading would not. Either report the output (supplementary coding matrix, summary of dual-coded provisions) or describe the method more modestly and shorten 2.5.
Response 1:
Thank you for this important comment. We agree that the original manuscript described the coding procedure in greater detail than was demonstrated in the Results. We therefore shortened and clarified Section 2.5 and added Appendix C, which reports a provision/source-level coding matrix and representative overlapping functional effects. The matrix now makes dual coding visible, including provisions coded simultaneously as integrity-enhancing and entry-constraining, value-creating and value-capturing, or claim-integrity and demand-enabling. Because the corpus is purposive and heterogeneous, we do not use code frequencies as comparative performance measures; instead, the coding output is reported transparently at the source/provision level and linked to the relevant Results tables.
Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.5, opening paragraphs of Section 3, and Appendix C.
Comment 2:
The methods section: the method section is long and repetitive. Sections 2.1 to 2.8 run four pages for a small corpus. 2.7 restates 2.1, 2.8 restates the source hierarchy and implementation status scheme third times, 2.3 and 2.4 both cover data sources, and Figure 1 repeats 2.1. In Table 3 to 5, cells contain full sentences with citations, several in Table 4 are paragraph length, so the tables read as prose in a grid. Compress cells to short phrases, move detail into the text.
Response 2:
Thank you for this helpful suggestion. We substantially compressed the Methods section and removed repeated explanations of the research design, data sources, source hierarchy, implementation status, and analytical sequence. Figure 1 was also redesigned so that it summarizes the core analytical workflow rather than repeating the text. In addition, Tables 3–5 were revised to use shorter functional phrases instead of paragraph-length descriptions, while supporting explanations were retained or moved to the surrounding Results text.
Changes in the manuscript: Sections 2.1–2.8, Figure 1, and Tables 3–5.
Comment 3:
The promised policy transfer classification does not appear. Section 2.7 states that EU and Singapore functions will be classified into four groups (directly applicable, requiring adjustment, limited at present, needing new design). No such classification is presented. Adding it would strengthen the contribution significantly, otherwise remove the claim.
Response 3:
Thank you for identifying this inconsistency. We retained the four-fold policy-transfer classification and now report it explicitly in the Results. A new Section 3.4 and Table 6 classify the relevant institutional functions as directly applicable principles, functions requiring institutional adjustment, functions limited at Korea's present stage, or functions requiring new design. The Discussion also addresses the conditions and risks associated with policy transfer.
Changes in the manuscript: Section 3.4, Table 6, and Section 4.1.
Comment 4:
The SciVal stage: This stage is unclear in purpose and weak in execution. No clusters, trends or figures are reported. Only totals and four hit counts (1, 1, 11, 0), which placed after the claim that the literature is disconnected, function as gap evidence. The search is not reproducible (no search details, such as strings, fields or manuscript types, so the 792 outputs cannot be verified), and uses single terms without synonyms. No critical terms such as MRV and additionality were searched at all. I recommend that either replace this section with an enhanced documented bibliometric analysis with an emphasis on the three main themes, or remove Stage 1 and justify the categories from the literature, revising Figure 1 accordingly.
Response 4:
Thank you for this important comment. We followed the second option suggested by the reviewer. SciVal is no longer treated as a formal analytical stage or as evidence of the research gap. It is now presented only as a supplementary landscape check, while the Integrity, Entry, and Value dimensions are explicitly derived deductively from the research questions and relevant literature. Figure 1 was revised accordingly so that the core empirical analysis begins with document collection rather than SciVal. We also report the retained SciVal search configuration, analysis date, time window, aggregate outputs, and representative Topic information in Appendix A. In addition, we explicitly state that MRV and additionality were not independent query filters and that no inference is drawn from their frequency or absence.
Changes in the manuscript: Sections 2.1 and 2.2, Figure 1, and Appendix A.
Comment 5:
Case asymmetry: The Singapore Guidance addresses corporate buyers, so coding supply-side support as "not identified" is largely a result of document selection. Singapore is also a trading hub whose credits mostly originate elsewhere, so Entry may simply mean something different there. The conclusion drawn from these gaps in Section 4.1 is not supportable without broader evidence. Also, broad Korean financing instruments are coded as entry-enabling while the EU analysis stays inside CRCF and records early-stage finance as "not identified", although the Innovation Fund and CAP carbon-farming support. This may make Korea look most complete. I recommend the authors apply one boundary rule across cases.
Response 5:
Thank you for this important methodological comment. We agree that the original comparison could create an asymmetry because the selected documents differ in purpose and market role. We therefore introduced one common case-boundary rule across the EU, Singapore, and Korea. The core comparison now includes only legal, policy, market-operation, or support instruments that are directly linked to VCM/CRCF participation and the functions examined in the study. Broader economy-wide climate-finance programs are treated as contextual unless they are explicitly linked to VCM/CRCF participation. We also revised the treatment of Singapore so that the absence of supplier-side support in the buyer-oriented Guidance is not interpreted as evidence of market-wide institutional absence. The Discussion and Limitations were revised accordingly, and the comparison no longer ranks jurisdictions by institutional completeness.
Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.3, Section 3.2 and Table 4, Section 4.1, and Section 4.2.
Comment on the Quality of English Language:
The manuscript is grammatical but hard to read. Many arguments are carried by abstract noun phrases, many sentences are long and nested, and there are terms never defined, such as value-conversion functions. Several expressions, such as "climate-tech firms and carbon mitigation project developers", are unnecessarily repeated. Inconsistent capitalization and compound forms are also used, especially for Integrity, Entry, and Value.
Response:
Thank you for this careful language-related comment. We revised the manuscript to use shorter sentences, more concrete subjects, and more direct wording. We introduced the umbrella term "supply-side actors" to reduce repeated use of longer actor descriptions. We also explicitly defined "value-conversion functions." In addition, a terminology convention is now stated in Section 2.5: capitalized Integrity, Entry, and Value refer only to the formal IEV dimensions, while lower-case integrity, entry, and value refer to general concepts; hyphenated modifiers such as entry-enabling and value-conversion are written consistently in lower case. The Abstract, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions were edited for readability and consistency.
Changes in the manuscript: Abstract, Introduction, Section 2.5, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions.
We sincerely thank the reviewer for these constructive comments. The revisions have made the analytical procedure more transparent, reduced methodological repetition, clarified the role of SciVal, strengthened the cross-case comparison, and improved the readability of the manuscript. All changes in the revised manuscript have been highlighted in bold for ease of review.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.The IEV framework is the central contribution of the study, but it currently appears mainly as an integration of three existing research domains. The authors should clarify what new theoretical mechanisms the framework adds, particularly the conditional roles of entry-enabling conditions and value-conversion functions.

2.The EU, Singapore, and Korea differ substantially in institutional form and market development stage. The manuscript should provide a clearer theoretical rationale for selecting these three cases and explain more explicitly how they remain comparable within a common functional framework.

3.The study combines SciVal analysis with qualitative coding, but the methodological description remains somewhat limited. The authors should provide additional details on the SciVal search strategy, coding procedures, development of subcodes, and the treatment of coding disagreements among researchers.

4.The Value dimension includes revenue realization, price valuation, revenue predictability, and commercial scaling, several of which appear more closely related to value capture than value creation. The authors should clarify the conceptual distinction between value creation and value capture and ensure consistent terminology throughout the manuscript.

 

Author Response

Comment 1:
The IEV framework is the central contribution of the study, but it currently appears mainly as an integration of three existing research domains. The authors should clarify what new theoretical mechanisms the framework adds, particularly the conditional roles of entry-enabling conditions and value-conversion functions.
Response 1:
Thank you for this important comment. We have clarified the theoretical contribution of the IEV framework more explicitly. The revised manuscript now specifies two conditional linking mechanisms rather than treating Integrity, Entry, and Value as an additive sequence. Entry-enabling conditions explain whether supply-side actors can satisfy integrity requirements despite information, capability, procedural, and cost demands, thereby linking Integrity to Entry. Value-conversion functions explain whether participation can be translated into strategic opportunities and captured economic returns, thereby linking Entry to Value. We also identify two potential breakpoints—Integrity-to-Entry and Entry-to-Value—to emphasize that neither credible credits nor market participation automatically produce the next-stage outcome. This conditional mechanism is now stated explicitly in the Introduction, framework development, Discussion, and Conclusions.
Changes in the manuscript: Introduction, Section 2.7, Discussion, and Conclusions.
Comment 2:
The EU, Singapore, and Korea differ substantially in institutional form and market development stage. The manuscript should provide a clearer theoretical rationale for selecting these three cases and explain more explicitly how they remain comparable within a common functional framework.
Response 2:
Thank you for this helpful comment. We have strengthened the theoretical rationale for case selection in Section 2.3. The EU, Singapore, and Korea are now described as theoretically contrasting institutional configurations rather than as matched national markets. The EU represents a rule-based certification framework centred on the CRCF, Singapore combines buyer-oriented guidance with an operating trading hub, and Korea represents a formation-stage institutional design. Their comparability therefore rests on functional equivalence rather than institutional identity. The revised manuscript also clarifies that the same common boundary rule is applied across the three cases and that comparison is conducted at the level of equivalent functions, including integrity, MRV, market access, buyer demand, trading, and value conversion.
Changes in the manuscript: Sections 2.1, 2.3, and 2.6, and Table 1.
Comment 3:
The study combines SciVal analysis with qualitative coding, but the methodological description remains somewhat limited. The authors should provide additional details on the SciVal search strategy, coding procedures, development of subcodes, and the treatment of coding disagreements among researchers.
Response 3:
Thank you for this methodological suggestion. We have expanded the methodological transparency of both the SciVal landscape check and the qualitative coding procedure. The revised manuscript and Appendix A now report the SciVal Research Area construction, exact search phrase, analysis date, time window, aggregate outputs, and representative Topic information. We also clarify that SciVal serves only as supplementary research context and does not generate the IEV categories or establish the research gap.
For the qualitative analysis, Section 2.5 now explains that the three higher-order IEV dimensions were specified deductively from the research questions and literature, while recurrent institutional functions identified in the documents were added as subcodes within those predefined dimensions. Two researchers independently checked the coding of the core materials. Disagreements concerning both IEV-dimension assignment and overlapping functional-effect labels were resolved by consensus after re-reading the relevant source material. Appendix C presents the resulting consensus coding in a provision/source-level matrix.
Changes in the manuscript: Sections 2.2 and 2.5, Appendix A, and Appendix C.
Comment 4:
The Value dimension includes revenue realization, price valuation, revenue predictability, and commercial scaling, several of which appear more closely related to value capture than value creation. The authors should clarify the conceptual distinction between value creation and value capture and ensure consistent terminology throughout the manuscript.
Response 4:
Thank you for this important conceptual comment. We have clarified and applied a consistent distinction between value creation and value capture throughout the manuscript. Value creation now refers to buyer utility, market access, commercialization, and strategic opportunity. Value capture refers to the realization, stabilization, and expansion of economic returns through sales, pricing, contracts, risk allocation, repeat transactions, and transaction-based commercial scaling.
Table 5 has been revised accordingly. Buyer access/demand and strategic/commercial opportunity are classified as value-creation functions, whereas revenue realization, price valuation, revenue predictability/contracting, risk-adjusted value preservation, and commercial scaling are classified as value-capture functions. We also clarify that scaling is treated as value capture when it expands realized transactions, contracted demand, or revenue opportunities after market entry, while pre-revenue strategic opportunity remains part of value creation.
Changes in the manuscript: Section 2.5, Section 3.3, Table 5, Discussion, and Conclusions.
We sincerely thank the reviewer for the constructive and focused comments. These suggestions helped us clarify the theoretical contribution of the IEV framework, strengthen the rationale for the comparative case design, improve methodological transparency, and sharpen the distinction between value creation and value capture. All changes in the revised manuscript have been highlighted in bold for ease of review.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The authors have responded well to the previous review comments. The scientific content is sound and the arguments are clear.

I do not require any further scientific revisions. I noticed a few minor issues that should be addressed:

Reference [24] cites the VCMI Claims Code as "Version 3.2, 23 September 2026," which is after the core analysis reference date of 31 August 2026. Please verify the version number and publication date, and confirm the cited version was available at the time of analysis.

In the Author Contributions section, the abbreviation "H.-J.N." does not match the third author listed as "Hyung Joo Roh" — it should be "H.-J.R."

In Table 5 (Commercial scaling row, Korea column), "wide r uses" should be "wider uses".

Author Response

Comment:
Reference [24] cites the VCMI Claims Code as “Version 3.2, 23 September 2026,” which is after the core analysis reference date of 31 August 2026. Please verify the version number and publication date, and confirm the cited version was available at the time of analysis.
Response:
Thank you for identifying this inconsistency. We verified the VCMI publication history and confirmed that Version 3.2 of the Claims Code of Practice was released on 23 September 2026, after the core analysis reference date of 31 August 2026. We have therefore corrected Reference [24] to the version that was available at the time of the analysis, namely VCMI Claims Code of Practice, Version 3.1, published on 18 August 2025. The access date has also been revised to 31 August 2026. This correction does not affect the substantive analysis or interpretation of claim integrity in the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for responding to the original feedback and suggestions.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2
Thank you very much for reviewing our revised manuscript and for acknowledging our responses to the previous comments and suggestions. We sincerely appreciate your time and constructive feedback, which helped us improve the clarity and quality of the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accept in present form

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3
Thank you very much for your positive evaluation of our revised manuscript and for recommending acceptance in its present form. We sincerely appreciate your time and valuable feedback throughout the review process.