The “Simultaneous Development of Quantity and Quality”: Research on the Impact of the Digital Economy in Enabling Manufacturing Innovation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors:

The topic proposed in your research paper, “Simultaneous Development of Quantity and Quality: Research on the Impact of Digital Economy Enabling Manufacturing Innovation” is an interesting topic.

However, some recommendations for its improvement are presented.

First of all, you should clarify some aspects about the selected population and sample, in terms of the number. You talk about 30 administrative regions from 2012 to 2022, but how many manufacturing companies are analyzed? And how many for each region? For example, in Table 2, 18065 observations appear but it is not clear about how many companies.

Similarly, it indicates that “This paper selects the data of listed manufacturing companies from 2012 to 2022, and matches the data of each province according to the registration place of the enterprises” but what is the number per year and province? Similarly, when it states that companies are excluded, what is the number?

It is also requested to clarify some information in the different sections of the text. For example, when it indicates that “The number of invention patent applications is taken as the proxy variable of Quantity, and the number of citations of authorized invention patents is taken as the proxy variable of Quality.” Clarify where they have obtained this data. Although the paper indicates that it will be based on reports published by the government and databases such as CNRDS, this section should be more specific.  They should also be made clear in the bibliography so that their comparison can be accessed. 

Finally, it is recommended to add some clarification in the search for words, in relation to the context in which they are framed.

I hope these recommendations can contribute to the improvement of your article.

Best regards:

Author Response

Comments 1: First of all, you should clarify some aspects about the selected population and sample, in terms of the number. You talk about 30 administrative regions from 2012 to 2022, but how many manufacturing companies are analyzed? And how many for each region? For example, in Table 2, 18065 observations appear but it is not clear about how many companies.   Similarly, it indicates that “This paper selects the data of listed manufacturing companies from 2012 to 2022, and matches the data of each province according to the registration place of the enterprises” but what is the number per year and province? Similarly, when it states that companies are excluded, what is the number?

Response 1: Thank you for pointing this out. Regarding the above two comments, we report to you the number of enterprises corresponding to different regions and the number of excluded enterprises in the research interval. First, Table1 shows the number of enterprises and the total number of enterprises in different regions from 2012 to 202. Secondly, 324 enterprises were excluded. Table 1

Province	2012		2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	Sum
Anhui		43	45	44	49	47	54	63	63	71	86	89	94
Beijing		57	61	60	74	74	77	86	96	112	120	120	124
Fujian		27	31	29	35	40	52	57	61	66	74	71	79
Gansu		8	8	8	8	11	11	13	11	11	11	11	14
Guangdong		157	165	176	210	240	290	321	343	375	431	429	462
Guangxi		10	10	12	12	12	10	10	8	9	9	11	16
Guizhou		14	14	14	13	13	13	17	17	18	19	18	19
Hainan		3	4	3	3	5	5	4	4	5	7	7	7
Hebei		25	27	25	32	30	35	37	39	41	43	44	46
Henan		43	41	42	48	46	46	50	52	56	57	59	63
Heilongjiang		10	11	8	11	12	11	12	13	15	14	15	17
Hubei		28	30	33	35	41	41	45	50	53	62	63	67
Hunan		27	28	30	33	38	47	55	55	58	70	70	74
Jilin		7	10	12	12	13	10	13	12	13	14	16	17
Jiangsu		126	134	137	162	192	227	256	270	299	346	347	376
Jiangxi		11	15	15	19	23	26	28	28	34	36	35	36
Liaoning		20	19	22	27	26	28	29	28	31	35	36	40
Inner Mongolia		8	10	10	9	11	8	11	11	11	11	11	11
Ningxia		3	5	3	2	3	3	5	5	4	7	7	8
Qinghai		1	1	1	3	3	2	4	3	3	5	5	5
Shandong		86	91	89	96	106	116	132	139	149	169	173	178
Shanxi		10	12	12	15	15	13	15	14	15	17	18	20
Shaanxi		12	11	14	15	17	14	19	22	25	31	31	32
Shanghai		59	58	60	69	82	100	110	121	141	153	156	163
Sichuan		35	41	39	43	55	58	67	69	76	85	85	89
Tianjin		15	16	18	18	20	23	25	26	29	31	31	32
Xinjiang		10	13	11	15	14	13	15	16	17	17	16	18
Yunnan		12	13	14	13	16	17	17	17	17	19	19	19
Zhejiang		134	140	150	175	198	254	269	284	322	365	365	395
Chongqing		12	14	17	16	18	18	21	21	21	23	25	29

Comments 2: It is also requested to clarify some information in the different sections of the text. For example, when it indicates that “The number of invention patent applications is taken as the proxy variable of Quantity, and the number of citations of authorized invention patents is taken as the proxy variable of Quality.” Clarify where they have obtained this data. Although the paper indicates that it will be based on reports published by the government and databases such as CNRDS, this section should be more specific.  They should also be made clear in the bibliography so that their comparison can be accessed.

Response 2: In response to this comment, we give a more specific introduction to the data sources of Quantity and Quality. Among them, the number of invention patent applications was obtained from the innovation patent research information in the CNRDS database; the number of citations of authorized invention patents was obtained from the patent citation information in the CNRDS database. And this change corresponds to Line 407-410.   Comments 3: Finally, it is recommended to add some clarification in the search for words, in relation to the context in which they are framed.

Response 3: We introduce the selection basis of feature words more specifically. Among them, according to the 5 dimensions of data storage and calculation, data management, data circulation, data application, and data security, we obtained 41 feature words of data elements. According to the 4 dimensions of artificial intelligence technology, communication network technology, Internet of Things technology, cloud computing technology, and other supplementary vocabulary, 40 digital technology feature words were obtained. According to the 3 dimensions of communication network infrastructure, new technology infrastructure, and computing infrastructure, 30 digital infrastructure feature words were obtained. And this change corresponds to Line 430-437.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study takes China as an example to explore the impact of digital economy on

manufacturing Innovation from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. This article is well organized. However, there are still some problems need to be further solved.

 

(1)    The introduction and literature review mainly focus on the research in the Chinese context, which is obviously inconsistent with the positioning of System as an international journal. Therefore, a presentation of a broader international study should be included. In particular, regional differences need to be further summarized and discussed.

(2)    My main concern is whether it is appropriate to use text analysis to measure the level of digitization of a microenterprise sample. In addition, the natural logarithm of total word frequency is used to measure the comprehensive index of regional digital economy. Can these indicators accurately represent the true level of digitization? Due to the lack of objective data, the validity and reliability of the results of empirical analysis in this study are not convincing.

(3)    The results of the study need to be further discussed, especially in comparison with other studies. In addition, limitations and future research directions need to be supplemented.

(4)    The writing style and language need to be significantly and extensively revised.

 

I hope these comments are helpful.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Extensive editing of English language required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

0. Abstract: The abstract is too long to effectively describe the study's problems, methods, results, and significance.

1. Introduction:

Line 34-46 is not strongly related to the research object-Digital Economy.

Line 61-64, “will reach 24% by 2022.” is not an appropriate argument.

Line 101-107, the marginal contribution (1) is not made by authors. There are many references used this method.

The introduction should state the research questions clearly and directly. The marginal contribution should be the authors' true work.

2. Theoretical Analysis and Research Hypothesis

This section should be decomposed into two sections, namely, literature review and theoretical analysis.

Literature review should cite references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant.

Theoretical analysis should be the demonstration and deduction of the authors’ own point of view.

3. Research Design is similar with other reference, especially 3.2.2. Explanatory Variables.

4. Empirical Testing

Line 501-516, in fact Zhejiang’s digital economy is a good model in China, which is not in the first echelon that authors listed.

5. Conclusions and Implications

On the conclusions, the author should compare it with the previous research conclusions.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Extensive editing of English language required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article has been significantly improved. I have no further comment.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This revised manuscript has been improved sufficiently, and I have some suggestions for improving this work that I think will help.

1--In the Introduction part, the third and the fourth paragraphs don’t connect so well. Maybe changing the two paragraphs position could make this article more fluent?

Line 92-127，the fourth paragraph, the authors only list the literatures, need to summarize what issues these literatures are trying to illustrate.

2--Due to the length of this article, it will be better if the authors can add a paragraph to briefly introduce each section of this study.

3--In section 2. Theoretical Analysis and Research Hypothesis:

(1) The hypothesis H1 et al. is written about the positive impact of the digital economy on manufacturing innovation, while most of the previous content is about the positive impact of the digital economy on businesses. It would be better if the author could establish a connection between enterprises and manufacturing.

(2) There are many factors included in Research and development elements. , and the author had better simply explain why the effective allocation level of R&D personnel and R&D funds is selected as the intermediary variable.

4--In the third paragraph of section 3.2.3, It is not clear what γKi and γLi represent, respectively. It would be better if the author could explain that γKi and γLi represent the absolute distortion coefficient of capital elements and the absolute distortion coefficient of labor elements, respectively.

5--In section 4.3. Benchmark Regression Results, this part is the explanation of the four hypotheses (H1, H1a, H1b, H1c), so could the authors provide a better illustration of this result? For example, only the coefficient of model 3 is not significant, the authors can explain why that happened or what this means.

In section 4.5.2, the author makes a conclusion without clearly indicating which of columns (1) and (2) represents state-owned enterprises and which represents non-state-owned enterprises, and the same is true for columns (3) and (4). In section 4.5.3, the author also fails to specify which are advanced manufacturing enterprises and which are general manufacturing enterprises. It would be better if the author could clarify this.

6--Besides, there are some small mistakes that need to check:

(1) In line 36-37, is “America Saves” an institution?

(2) In Line 387, is there an extra “information”?

(3) In lines 735-736, “Quanlity” is a wrong word.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf