The Effect of Leadership Styles on the Growth of Fintech Start-Ups in Zambia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

The topic of the manuscript is interesting and suitable to be published in the FinTech journal.

I suggest improving the discussion section and comparing the findings with previously published works. The concluding remarks could present some policy suggestions or managerial guidelines arising from this study.

The citations and reference list do not comply with the journal guidelines.

Author Response

Response to reviewers

Thank you for the positive notes and the constructive feedback that allowed us to improve the paper. We agree with your suggestions and below we indicate how we have responded to each of them. We believe that your review led to a substantial revision, which is significantly better than the previous version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 1:

Dear authors,

The topic of the manuscript is interesting and suitable to be published in the FinTech journal.

I suggest improving the discussion section and comparing the findings with previously published works. The concluding remarks could present some policy suggestions or managerial guidelines arising from this study.

The citations and reference list do not comply with the journal guidelines.

Response: We agree with this observation. We have carefully revised the discussion, conlusing remarks and references as follow:

1. Discussion section – we have compared our findings with previously published works in section 5.0.
2. Policy and Managerial implications – we have now included policy and managerial implications in section 6.0.
3. Citations and references – we have revised our reference in line the journal guidelines.

Reviewer 2 Report

Review – Leadership styles and Fintech performance

Introduction

From the start the manuscript displays some very good qualities. It is well structured easy to follow and the arguments are consistent and supported by related literature. Moreover, it is an interesting research question on how leadership styles affect performance, especially in FinTech. However, it should be more justified why the case of Zambia is chosen.

Literature Review

The literature review is again well structured and starts with some key concepts. It develops well and mentions relevant studies and arguments. In some parts there is the feeling that it can be enriched. For example, the first paragraph in page 7 can be enhanced with some more studies and justification – like why are there not studies on Africa? The second paragraph on p. 7 is however rather weak and it presents arguments without proper justification and most importantly literature and I would suggest to be rewritten. When in the third paragraph you start discussing about Zambia you miss the reference in the first sentence. Again as mentioned before you can expand on the analysis and justification why Zambia was chosen.

In page 8 it is better to start a section on Leadership. P 9 An assessment – but there is not an assessment – there is significant literature on entrepreneur and her/his characteristics that is not covered. Alo the part on Leadership styles is minimal – there is considerable literature and because it is the key premise it should be analysed much more. I think there should a clear distinction and expansion of the concepts of entrepreneur and leader ad then provide a critical discussion, where they coincide and the entrepreneurial leadership concept.

Then I is getting much better – performance and leadership styles and the development of hypothesis is a very good.

Methods

You have 25 companies, that is already a rather small sample and marginal to get some reliable statistical results. Why do you reduce it to 10? I think this is main weakness and I would recommend that this study is majorly amended in order to be published.

The rest of the methods are rather good and are well justified and based on similar studies.

Results and Conclusions

There is reasonable analysis but nothing sophisticated. The problem remain the small sample. The results should be compared and analysed in the context of similar studies on company performance. Do they agree or disagree with other studies. What is the contribution of this study on the literature.

Overall an interesting effort. You should get a bigger sample and analyse the results in comparison to the broader literature. The literature review is also limited.

Author Response

Response to reviewers

Thank you for the positive notes and the constructive feedback that allowed us to improve the paper. We agree with your suggestions and below we indicate how we have responded to each of them. We believe that your review led to a substantial revision, which is significantly better than the previous version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 2:

Review – Leadership styles and Fintech performance

Introduction

From the start the manuscript displays some very good qualities. It is well structured easy to follow and the arguments are consistent and supported by related literature. Moreover, it is an interesting research question on how leadership styles affect performance, especially in FinTech. However, it should be more justified why the case of Zambia is chosen.

Response: Thank you for the observation and recommendation on the introduction section. We have carefully revised section in line with your advice. We have provided the justification for choosing Zambia in section 1, paragraph four (4) of the revised manuscript.

Literature Review

The literature review is again well structured and starts with some key concepts. It develops well and mentions relevant studies and arguments. In some parts there is the feeling that it can be enriched. For example, the first paragraph in page 7 can be enhanced with some more studies and justification – like why are there not studies on Africa? The second paragraph on p. 7 is however rather weak and it presents arguments without proper justification and most importantly literature and I would suggest to be rewritten. When in the third paragraph you start discussing about Zambia you miss the reference in the first sentence. Again as mentioned before you can expand on the analysis and justification why Zambia was chosen.

In page 8 it is better to start a section on Leadership. P 9 An assessment – but there is not an assessment – there is significant literature on entrepreneur and her/his characteristics that is not covered. Also the part on Leadership styles is minimal – there is considerable literature and because it is the key premise it should be analysed much more. I think there should a clear distinction and expansion of the concepts of entrepreneur and leader and then provide a critical discussion, where they coincide and the entrepreneurial leadership concept.

Response: We have carefully revised the literature and better integrated the different literature streams we build on. We have provided the justification for choosing Zambia.

Then I is getting much better – performance and leadership styles and the development of hypothesis is a very good.

Response: Thank you for the positive feedback on this section.

Methods

You have 25 companies, that is already a rather small sample and marginal to get some reliable statistical results. Why do you reduce it to 10? I think this is main weakness and I would recommend that this study is majorly amended in order to be published.

The rest of the methods are rather good and are well justified and based on similar studies.

Results and Conclusions

There is reasonable analysis but nothing sophisticated. The problem remain the small sample. The results should be compared and analysed in the context of similar studies on company performance. Do they agree or disagree with other studies. What is the contribution of this study on the literature.

Overall an interesting effort. You should get a bigger sample and analyse the results in comparison to the broader literature. The literature review is also limited.

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree that the sample size is small and there is a need to use a larger sample size. We have included this weakness as one of the limitation of the study. We have also explained that even though there were 25 companies, the study focus on the best performing Fintech start-ups only because we need to learn why they performed so well. The data base on gave us the 10 we included in the study at the number. We collected the data in 2020, a lot could have happened between then and now. Perhaps future studies could include more firms. Once again, thank you for pointing out this limitation.

We have compared our finding with previously published works in section 5.0.

We have added the contribution of this study on the literature in section 6.1.

Reviewer 3 Report

Research: The Effect of Leadership Styles on the Growth of Fintech Start-ups in Zambia

Date: 19/08/23

Journal: FinTech MDPI

This research looks at how leaders different approaches influence how well a Fintech performs in Zambia. The topic is sufficiently focused. There is a lot of work already on leadership but the different industry and country make it interesting enough. The results are what someone would probably expect but it is still useful to confirm what people suspect.

The situation in Zambia is explained quite well.

The paper is mostly well written but it needs to be proofread again carefully. For example some citations have issues.

If the italics are quotations then they should have quotation marks. If it is for emphasis it should be reduced. This must be fixed.

There are many useful citations but the paper needs to be tied to more hot topics in Fintech. I recommend three links here as a minimum that should be implemented.

Some links could be made to Fintech solutions:

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-07-2022-0295

The implications of trust could be linked to the leadership styles, either in the literature review or in the discussion for future research:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2022.100739

The role of word of mouth in Fintechs:

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1085587

The aim and research questions are clearly defined and aligned.

The methodology is alright.

For this research topic the originality is sufficient because it is in a specific country but it must be tied to more hot topics in Fintech as discussed earlier.

I hope the value in the guidance is clear.

I strongly encourage the authors to complete all the recommendations unless they have a very strong and convincing reason not to.

I wish the authors every success in their future endeavours. Good luck.

The paper is mostly well written but it needs to be proofread again carefully. For example some citations have issues.

Author Response

Response to reviewers

Thank you for the positive notes and the constructive feedback that allowed us to improve the paper. We agree with your suggestions and below we indicate how we have responded to each of them. We believe that your review led to a substantial revision, which is significantly better than the previous version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 3:

Research: The Effect of Leadership Styles on the Growth of Fintech Start-ups in Zambia

Date:19/08/23

Journal: FinTech MDPI

This research looks at how leaders different approaches influence how well a Fintech performs in Zambia. The topic is sufficiently focused. There is a lot of work already on leadership but the different industry and country make it interesting enough. The results are what someone would probably expect but it is still useful to confirm what people suspect.

The situation in Zambia is explained quite well.

The paper is mostly well written but it needs to be proofread again carefully. For example some citations have issues.

If the italics are quotations then they should have quotation marks. If it is for emphasis it should be reduced. This must be fixed.

There are many useful citations but the paper needs to be tied to more hot topics in Fintech. I recommend three links here as a minimum that should be implemented.

Some links could be made to Fintech solutions:

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-07-2022-0295  

The implications of trust could be linked to the leadership styles, either in the literature review or in the discussion for future research:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2022.100739

The role of word of mouth in Fintechs:

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1085587

The aim and research questions are clearly defined and aligned.

The methodology is alright.

For this research topic the originality is sufficient because it is in a specific country but it must be tied to more hot topics in Fintech as discussed earlier.

I hope the value in the guidance is clear.

I strongly encourage the authors to complete all the recommendations unless they have a very strong and convincing reason not to.

I wish the authors every success in their future endeavours. Good luck.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The paper is mostly well written but it needs to be proofread again carefully. For example some citations have issues.

Response: We have revised our reference in line the journal guidelines. Edits/proof reading has been done. We have added three citations in line the journal guidelines

Reviewer 4 Report

I suggest this paper could be accepted.

I suggest this paper could be accepted.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4:

I suggest this paper could be accepted.

Response: Thank you for your positive comment. We appreciate the time you took to review our manuscript.

We would like to conclude by expressing our gratitude for the positive notes on the paper and we would also like to thank you for the suggestions for further improving the paper. Your comments have been valuable for further improving the paper.