Unravelling the Potential of Digital Servitization in Sustainability-Oriented Organizational Performance—Does Digital Leadership Make It Different?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to thank the authors for the opportunity to read this manuscript. The paper examines the interplay between sustainability, smart services, and ecosystems. The author(s) conceptually addressed an undoubtedly relevant research issue, and the paper holds its promise of contributing to it. The manuscript demonstrates an adequate understanding of the most important concepts.

 

After reading the article, I conclude that the author(s) have a respectable manuscript that requires some developments. I believe the manuscript has the potential to contribute to the literatures on sustainability and smart services if the authors improve their manuscript by strengthening the introduction, the literature examined and some empirical issues. There a few significant points to be addressed.

 

1) The title is too long. I would advise to make it shorter and sharper.

 

2) I think the introduction needs to be rewritten. In my opinion, it is one of the weakest parts of the study. Author(s) need to place particular emphasis on the storyline and the way they write the story they want to tell. In the current version of the introduction the concepts and ideas emerge in such a way that the reader has difficulty understanding the plot of the story.

 

3) That said, I think the author(s) still need to work harder to clarify the research gap. In my view there is extensive number of papers missing in the literature review (especially related to digital service innovation, digital servitization, and servitization systems – see some examples below) that would help making the paper stronger. It is author(s) responsibility to make fully clear how the analysis presented here differentiates from previous research.

 

Lafuente, E., Vaillant, Y., & Vendrell-Herrero, F. (2017). Territorial servitization: Exploring the virtuous circle connecting knowledge-intensive services and new manufacturing businesses. International Journal of Production Economics, 192, 19-28.

Opazo-Basáez, M., Vendrell-Herrero, F. and Bustinza, O.F. (2022), "Digital service innovation: a paradigm shift in technological innovation", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 33 No. 1, pp. 97-120. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-11-2020-0427

Raddats, C., Naik, P., & Bigdeli, A. Z. (2022). Creating value in servitization through digital service innovations. Industrial Marketing Management, 104, 1-13.

 

Vendrell-Herrero, F., Bustinza, O. F., Parry, G., & Georgantzis, N. (2017). Servitization, digitization and supply chain interdependency. Industrial Marketing Management, 60, 69-81.

 

 

4) Rephrase hypothesis. Instead of saying “in a significant and positive manner” just say that variable A is positively related to variable B, or alternatively that variable A positively impacts variable B. Just use a more standard framing.

5) Your figure 1 and your results make emphasis on a mediation effect, but you have not added any Hypothesis related to the mediation role of Sustainable and smart service innova[1]tion ecosystem.

6) the answer rate of 83% seems very high. Can the author(s) explain how this answer rate was achieved? Some contextualization is needed.

7) the conclusion merely restates your findings but does not indicate how theory needs to be revised or adapted.  What can we learn from your study? In this respect I think you would need to explain more than you do now, how your study differs from previous work and what the added value is of your analysis. One useful resource in this context is the editorial by Geletkanycz and Tepper in Academy of Management Journal (2012, vol. 55.2: 256-260) on how to discuss the implications in a discussion section.  You may want to have a look at that particular editorial.  findings for theory. I think your discussion section could be expanded.

 

8) The paper will benefit by getting professional proofreading.

I hope the best of luck with this promising research!

Author Response

Reviewer point #1: The title is too long

Author response #1: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, we had made some changes for the title of this research.

Reviewer point #2: The introduction needs to be rewritten and clarify the research gaps

Author response #2: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, the introduction was rewritten in the following order. More instrumentally, the research motivation was first presented to create a sound background to illustrate the research gaps and determine the research questions. Remarkably, all related literature recommended by the reviewer was added in this research.

Reviewer point #3: Rephrase hypothesis

Author response #3: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, all the hypotheses in this research were rephrased

Reviewer point #4: Hypothesis related to the mediation role of Sustainable and smart service innovation ecosystem

Author response #4: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, we added the hypothesis related to the mediation role of Sustainable and smart service innovation ecosystem.

Reviewer point #5: The answer rate of 83% seems very high. Can the author(s) explain how this answer rate was achieved?

Author response #5: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, we added analyses for why the answer rate seemed very high

Reviewer point #6: The conclusion merely restates your findings but does not indicate how theory needs to be revised or adapted.

Author response #6: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, we rewrote the theorical implication and added the title of sub-section which focused on the practical implication. On this bais, we also added some drawbacks of this research

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Introduction:

The introduction is nicely written, but as it stands, is too long and contains too many concepts. In the current version, the concepts and ideas emerge in such a way that the reader has difficulty understanding the plot of the story. I have had to read the introduction several times before fully understanding the research question and the contributions to the literature. I would recommend shortening the introduction and place particular emphasis on the storyline. Following my previous comment, the introduction presents the paper, the topic of the research, the reason why it should be studied and the way it is researched. Therefore, I suggest introducing the importance of the topic. After that, highlight the research gap and formulate your research question. From here, set the objective and state the contribution of the paper, ending with a preview of results and an outline of the structure of the paper. Finally, it would be useful to give further details about the methodology chosen, why, compared to others, is appropriate in the current research.

 

Theory:

The theoretical development is too complex and difficult to follow. The author(s) should try to make the arguments more tangible to the reader. I suggest introducing the main theories that support Smart service innovation framework, is there any?. Let me elaborate further on this comment. In a first reading of the paper the arguments seem reasonable, although after reading it on repeated occasions there is a subjacent question that can potentially undermine the entire argument of the paper: where is the theoretical underpinning? Whilst the authors describe several concepts, they are more oriented towards explaining operational effects. That is a good approach for an operations management paper, not to one focused on sustainable performance. In this regards, the theoretical underpinning where the concepts are grounded is something that increase the overall quality of the theoretical section. For instance, Opazo-Basaez et al. (2018) links Green and Digital servitization with performance outcomes. Opazo-Basaez et al. (2022) links Digital servitization and Innovation frameworks to develop the concept of Digital Service Innovation. Bustinza et al. (2021) explored the link between digital technologies and servitization for performance outcomes. Likewise, Vendrell-Herrero et al. (2021) linked servitization and digital technologies for organizational performance. Finally, Marić and Opazo-Basáez. (2019) linked the concept of Green servitization with supply chain operation frameworks for sustainable services. These are examples that can help you to develop a more robust theoretical framework.

On another note, what is the difference between Smart service innovation and Digital service innovation proposed by Opazo-Basaez et al. (2022) ??

References:  

 

·         Opazo-Basáez, M., Vendrell-Herrero, F., & Bustinza, O. F. (2021). Digital service innovation: a paradigm shift in technological innovation. Journal of Service Management.

 

The current version incorporates both the discussion and conclusion into a singular section (Final remarks). I would suggest splitting this section in two: discussion, and conclusions. There is a huge potential in the findings for developing an enriched discussion. The relevance of this discussion section depends heavily on the theories in which they are anchored, so it is critical that the constructs are properly developed and articulated. As stated before, authors do not properly ground the literature review section on grounding theoretical developments. Introducing this theoretical underpinning will sure suppose an improvement for the discussion section. Same for the new conclusion section. Conclusions bring closure, not on what the abstract announced, but on what the introduction and discussion opened. Therefore, an appropriate theoretical underpinning will enrich the contributions of the paper. Accordingly, a coherent structure for this section would must be structured under: theoretical implications and managerial implications. Likewise, it must be included a sub-section of limitations and directions for further research.

I trust my comments will help you to develop this research. I also hope you will appreciate my constructive spirit in reviewing your work. Best wishes with your research program.

Author Response

Reviewer point #1: The introduction needs to be rewritten

Author response #1: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, the introduction was rewritten in the following order. More instrumentally, the research motivation was first presented to create a sound background to illustrate the research gaps and determine the research questions. Remarkably, all related literature recommended by the reviewer was added in this research.

Reviewer point #2: The theoretical development is too complex and difficult to follow

Author response #2: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, we rewrote the theorical development. More concretely, the conceptualization was delineated and added with serveral illuminations taken from previous literature. We also added the perspectives of prior scholars to clarify the role of theorical lens in this research

Reviewer point #3: In addition, a coherent structure for this section would must be structured under: theoretical implications and managerial implications. Likewise, it must be included a sub-section of limitations and directions for further research.

Author response #3: We wholeheartedly agreed with the abovementioned perspective of the reviewer as these have been the paramount issues in all research. As such, we rewrote the theorical implication and added the title of sub-section which focused on the practical implication. On this bais, we also added some drawbacks of this research.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Let me start by saying that I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to read the revised version of the paper. It has been a nice reading, and I'm happy to say that the new version of the paper is much higher quality than the previous one.

I sincerely appreciate the job done in responding to reviewers' challenging requests. The authors have shown great ability in accepting negative comments and leveraging on suggestions.