National Contexts and R&D Transference: A Cross-Country Analysis of Entrepreneurial Perceptions and Policy Impact

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Added to attached document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable recommendations and for the opportunity to revise the manuscript!

Please find my responses and changes attached. 

The manuscript has been expanded significantly to include an introduction, additional pertinent and recent literature, hypotheses, additional statistical tests, as well as expanded results, discussion and limitations.  

Further proofreading was done on the entire document after the revisions, with ensuing changes to improve the narrative and clarity of ideas.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses an important and timely topic — the relationship between national conditions and the commercialization of research and development (R&D) results in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors correctly highlight that entrepreneurship-supportive factors such as digitization, economic climate, and government policies may influence firms’ innovation capacity. The use of data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and the application of factorial analysis of variance represent an appropriate methodological foundation. However, the paper suffers from several major weaknesses that substantially limit its scientific and practical value.
1. Lack of literature review and research hypotheses
The paper lacks a comprehensive literature review, which is essential to situate the research within a broader theoretical and empirical context. The authors fail to discuss prior studies on R&D commercialization, national innovation systems, or institutional differences across countries. Moreover, the study does not present any explicit research hypotheses, which makes it difficult to assess whether the empirical analysis truly addresses the intended research questions or contributes new theoretical insights.

2. Outdated data
A critical limitation of the paper is the use of data from 2021, specifically from the GEM National Expert Survey. Given that nearly five years have passed since data collection, global conditions — particularly in areas such as digital transformation, innovation policy, and post-pandemic economic adjustment — have changed significantly. As a result, the findings no longer reflect the current entrepreneurial or policy environment, which greatly reduces the study’s contemporary relevance and cognitive value.

3. Insufficient justification for country selection
The paper does not provide a clear rationale for the selection of countries included in the analysis. It remains unclear whether the choice was based on data availability, economic diversity, regional balance, or theoretical reasoning. Without such justification, the generalizability and interpretability of the results are severely limited.

4. Weak discussion and lack of comparative analysis
The discussion section is underdeveloped. The authors not comparing results to previous empirical results or theoretical expectations. There is no critical reflection on why certain variables failed to show significance, nor is there an attempt to contrast the findings across different national contexts. 
5. Conclusion
Although the article touches upon an important issue, its current form does not meet the standards of empirical research publication. The lack of a theoretical framework, hypotheses, and up-to-date data significantly undermines the validity of the conclusions. The authors are encouraged to update the dataset, expand the theoretical background, and provide a clearer justification for methodological choices.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable recommendations and for the opportunity to revise the manuscript!

Please find my responses and changes attached. 

The manuscript has been expanded significantly to include an introduction, additional pertinent and recent literature, hypotheses, additional statistical tests, as well as expanded results, discussion and limitations.  

Further proofreading was done on the entire document after the revisions, with ensuing changes to improve the narrative and clarity of ideas.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I read your paper very carefully and appreciated the effort to try to describe the relation between national contexts and R&D transference. However, some parts of the paper need to be strengthened to make a robust and significant contribution to the literature. In my opinion, you should address the following issues:

Introduction:

• In my opinion, this section is too long. The best solution would be to divide it into two sections: i) introduction; and ii) literature review.
• In lines 64 and 65 you wrote “The main studies on the phenomenon of firm-specific and national-level factors that drive R&D transfer explored and tested it in a country context. The literature includes […]”. Are the following studies the only ones, or are they just examples? If they are only examples, it would be better to clarify this.
• You have frequently included a citation in the text by placing the year outside the parentheses (for example, in lines 90, 95, 118, and 120). When the authors’ names are not in parentheses, it would be better to place the year in parentheses.
• It is necessary to explain more clearly what will be done in the study to overcome the gap identified in the literature.

Methodology:

• In lines 250 and 251 you wrote “Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)”. The second time you write it you can just use the abbreviation.
• You stated that you used the GEM 2021 NES Global Individual Level Nations dataset. Is there a more recent dataset?

Results:

• In line 406 you stated that there are missing data. Why are they missing?
• Could the first (i.e., Most frequent category (mode)) and last (i.e., Category/ies with highest frequency) rows of Table 1 be merged?

Discussion: at the beginning of this section, you wrote “Since country conditions that typically foster entrepreneurship (like digitization, economic environments and government policies) show limited influence on R&D transference […]”, while subsequently you stated “The study find that country location itself significantly affects R&D transference”. Moreover, you also expressed a similar concept at the beginning of the conclusions. What is the difference between “country conditions” and “country location”? Please clarify this where you deem most appropriate, as it is not immediately clear.

Conclusions:

• In line 593 you mentioned Hofstede’s cultural dimensions; thus, you should briefly explain what they are and/or why they should be considered.
• Before including references to future research, it is necessary to highlight the limitations of the paper.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable recommendations and for the opportunity to revise the manuscript!

Please find my responses and changes attached. 

The manuscript has been expanded significantly to include an introduction, additional pertinent and recent literature, hypotheses, additional statistical tests, as well as expanded results, discussion and limitations.  

Further proofreading was done on the entire document after the revisions, with ensuing changes to improve the narrative and clarity of ideas.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity of reading and reviewing your interesting manuscript.

The paper investigates the issue of cultural factors influecing entrepreneurship, more specifically whether national conditions traditionally linked to entrepreneurship e.g. digitization, economic climate, and government policies, impact on commercial opportunities for SMEs. 

The topic is very important, relevant and consistent with the scope. 

Regarding data and methods, the authors use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and NES and then apply factorial analysis to assess the effects of various factors. The method is adequate for the investigated topic.

Their results show that country location significantly influences R&D transference, while commonly assumed entrepreneurship-supportive conditions and pandemic-related government actions do not. Their findings challenge the belief that general support mechanisms automatically enhance R&D commercialization.

Moreover, the paper emphasizes the importance of broader national contexts and recommends targeted, context-sensitive strategies for innovation, urging entrepreneurs and policymakers to reconsider one-size-fits-all approaches to fostering entrepreneurship.

Here are my specific comments and suggestions:

Regarding structure:

1.The iNtroduction section is too long and actually it includes the usual Literature section. I suggest to split these 2 sections, and limit Introduction to a brief overview, objectives  and presentation of the paper structure. Please refer to the reserach gap you found.

2.In the new Literature section, please organize your presentation according to the objectives you have, and provide hypotheses based on the literature. I would also refer to more relevant and new literature (2024, 2025)

3.In the Methodology section, you should provide more information on the data you used (although the data is not crated by you, you still need to present them). The first sentence in the Results section would better fit in the Methodology section

4.The Discussion section is not strong enough, but some more in-depth discussion can be found in the Conclusions section.

5.The final section should also refer to limitations (there are some!), implications and further directions.

Regarding style, writing and language

The style is fine and I dind not found particular weaknesses in this regard.

As a general comment, the reserach is quite good but revisions are needed. Good luck!

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable recommendations and for the opportunity to revise the manuscript!

Please find my responses and changes attached. 

The manuscript has been expanded significantly to include an introduction, additional pertinent and recent literature, hypotheses, additional statistical tests, as well as expanded results, discussion and limitations.  

Further proofreading was done on the entire document after the revisions, with ensuing changes to improve the narrative and clarity of ideas.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Almost all the comments have been addressed. However one of them left unaddressed is:

While the discussion correctly argues that traditional indicators such as digital readiness or ease of starting a business inadequately capture R&D commercialization potential, it does not articulate what alternative constructs or measurable dimensions could fill this gap. Recent research referred below demonstrates how emerging frameworks can operationalize innovation ecosystems through data-driven analyses of entrepreneurial education, virtual technology adoption, and digital transformation. Drawing on such approaches would allow the paper to propose concrete, empirically tractable metrics. Refer to:

1. 1.  "Exploring metaverse technologies in entrepreneurship through machine learning based topic modeling." IEEE Access (2025).

Author Response

Thank you for your review! 

Please find attached my response and additions. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I read your revised version of the paper and I think that, compared to the previous version, there have been many improvements. However, I deem that further critical issues remain and must be overcome. In particular, you should address the following:

Introduction:

• You started this section by writing “R&D”. The first time you use the abbreviation, it should be after using the full term.
• Please include some references to literature in brackets in the first and new part of the section.
• In the last part of the section you wrote “The literature review is followed by a data source and collection section, which describes the use of the GEM NES dataset and its methodological rigor”. I think what you said is not correct, as these aspects are covered in the methodology section.

Literature review:

• In my opinion, this section is excessively long and difficult to read. Please i) consider combining similar parts into sub-paragraphs; ii) delete the less relevant parts; or iii) use some parts for the introduction (see the next comment).
• In my opinion, many parts of this section are more appropriate for the introductory section, especially when you refer to the purpose of the paper (e.g., lines 105-117).
• You started this section by writing “Research and development (R&D)”. I suggest you use only the abbreviation “R&D”. The same applies to line 362.

Methodology:

• In lines 662-663 you stated that there are missing data. Please clarify why they are missing, as you did in your reply to my previous comment.
• The new lines 664-670 should be placed in a different location, for example, where the variables considered are discussed.
• In my opinion, the definition of “country location” is still unclear. If you mean the country itself in light of its characteristics (e.g., political, social, entrepreneurial, etc.), this should be clarified further.

Discussion:

• This section is too long. Please consider removing the parts that are less relevant and less directly related to the R&D transfer. Moreover, some topics, such as training, are mentioned more than one time.

Author Response

Thank you for your continuing help with my paper! Please find my description of changes based on your suggestions attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I read your new version of the paper and I think that significant improvements have been made. I suggest only the following things:

Literature:

• In my opinion, this section is still too long. Why not consider grouping the similar parts you highlighted in the response to my comments into sub-paragraphs?

Methodology:

• A different shift was made than the one required for the previous lines 664-670 (new lines 608-618). Please consider whether you think the relocation is useful.
• The definition of “country location” is still unclear. Do you mean the country itself in light of its characteristics (e.g., political, social, entrepreneurial, etc.)?

Author Response

Thank you for your review! 

Please find my changes attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf