Shared Taxonomy for the Implementation of Responsible Innovation Approach in Industrial Ecosystems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper addresses a timely and interesting topic: roles of different stakeholders on the implementation of social innovations and how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach could serve for a taxonomy shared among stakeholders. This research is important because identifying their roles is crucial to improve the relationship and cooperation between these stakeholders to achieve a common goal such as sustainable innovation. I liked the discussion part and how the authors compared their results with the existing research.
Despite the interest of the research, the paper has some problems that prevent its publication as scientific work:

- The introduction should be restructured indicating the motivation for the study, the importance of its implementation, the objectives carried out and more references needed that explains the RRI, Four Helix model and why the authors chose those models clearly.
- The main problem is related to academic writing: It is clear that the authors have spent a lot of time on this article but (1) There are problems with the article structure. I mentioned the problems with the introduction above, the description of the methods and the research is very poor, the conclusion is written like a summary..., (2) The text is not coherent. Fragmentation and lack of integration problems make it hard to read (3) Proper structure and organization are missing in the manuscript. (4) In addition, the manuscript is full of value judgments and arguments without references.
This article fails to indicate the research design or strategy deployed for the study. A rationalization of the research design/strategy used as well as the methods utilized for data elicitation will undoubtedly engender the reproducibility of the study. It is advised that the authors indicate the research design that was utilized and justify the same accordingly. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced, for example, the authors said that they conducted survey research concerning social capital in Poland and Lithuania. They need to include the survey design/form, some examples of the respondents' answers, data from the analysis process. They said that they did a thematic analysis (Line 321) so they can include the identified themes and categories in the appendix. 
The authors also mention field notes but they fail to explain the process of taking the field notes and how those field notes were analysed. The case studies part was also not explained in detail.
 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for the very thorough review and helpful comments and suggestions. These comments have been carefully addressed. Our point-by-point responses are listed as follows. Modifications have been highlighted in the revised manuscript.

• The introduction should be restructured indicating the motivation for the study, the importance of its implementation, the objectives carried out and more references needed that explains the RRI, Four Helix model and why the authors chose those models clearly.

Answer:

Thank you for your comment. In the revised manuscript, the Introduction section has been improved, reconstructed, expanded of analytical insights in the area on RRI. The rewritten Introduction part now indicate the motivation of our study; the choice of Four Helix model was clarified and justified clearly; our contributions was explained and the importance of theoretical and practical implementation was presented.

We have revised the Introduction section to include much more information to explain the scientific problem. The Research level of scientific problem has been highlighted. We have also added and explained the main research question that his research has addressed; and the main aim of our research has been reconstructed. Also, our new theoretical insights allowed us to construct the methodological basis of the study, allowed us to justify the research design and to distinguish the stages of the study: all these points has been incorporated into the rewritten Introduction section on pages 2-5.

• The main problem is related to academic writing: It is clear that the authors have spent a lot of time on this article but (1) There are problems with the article structure. I mentioned the problems with the introduction above, the description of the methods and the research is very poor, the conclusion is written like a summary..., (2) The text is not coherent. Fragmentation and lack of integration problems make it hard to read (3) Proper structure and organization are missing in the manuscript. (4) In addition, the manuscript is full of value judgments and arguments without references

Answer: We thank reviewer for the feedback and valuable explanation. This comment helped to improve the quality of this work. All recommendations identified by the reviewer have been included in the revised version of the manuscript. Now our manuscript has been modified.

• This article fails to indicate the research design or strategy deployed for the study. A rationalization of the research design/strategy used as well as the methods utilized for data elicitation will undoubtedly engender the reproducibility of the study. It is advised that the authors indicate the research design that was utilized and justify the same accordingly. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced, for example, the authors said that they conducted survey research concerning social capital in Poland and Lithuania. They need to include the survey design/form, some examples of the respondents' answers, data from the analysis process. They said that they did a thematic analysis (Line 321) so they can include the identified themes and categories in the appendix. 
  The authors also mention field notes but they fail to explain the process of taking the field notes and how those field notes were analysed. The case studies part was also not explained in detail.

Answer: Thank you for this comment. We have added the missing elements that the reviewer mentions. Information about survey is provided on page 9. For the survey questions a 5-point Likert scale was used, where depending on the question the possible answers ranged from 1-I don't trust to 5-I trust very much, or 1-Very bad to 5-Very good or 1-Definitely not to 5-Definitely yes. A note to this effect is also included in the revised manuscript. All needed corrections have been made in the rewritten manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

 Shared taxonomy for the implementation of Responsible Innovation approach in industrial ecosystems

Manuscript No.: 1342890

This is a paper that study the impact of the academic environment, science, on the business sphere in two countries (Lithuania and Poland) using especially qualitative methods. In its current version, I cannot support publishing this article in Journal Sustainability. The reasons are the following:

1. The abstract should be improved including drawing broader and more general implications and knowledge gap.
2. In the introduction, the authors show the context, literature review and importance of study. However, the introduction misses significant information, such as: What makes the applied methodology suitable and superior in comparison to existing studies?, What is the expected new insight gained by applying the methodology?, and research question.
3. The second section shows the conceptual problems in implementing responsible research and innovation (RRI) in science and industry. This section is good developed. However, it important to determine how paper to analysis these problems.
4. Third section shows research design. These sections could be improved indicating the process of survey, significance, the structure of survey with questions, categories of analysis, selection of stakeholders and to explain the qualitative methods used in the narratives obtained.
5. In the next section, the paper describes the results. This section could be explained with more detail according to categories stablished, qualitative methods used and triangulation problems.
6. Discussion could be improved including the relation with specific results, strengths and shortcomings of this analysis, and a short outlook on further research requirements and possible research extensions.                                                                                                        

8. Conclusions could include political implications of research.

I wish that these comments can help the author to improve the paper.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for the very thorough review and helpful comments and suggestions. These comments have been carefully addressed. Our point-by-point responses are listed as follows. Modifications have been highlighted in the revised manuscript.

 

1. The abstract should be improved including drawing broader and more general implications and knowledge gap.

Answer: Thank you for this comment and suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have revised the Abstract section to include sentences to present and justify knowledge gap and to explain the key findings and our contributions. We provided more insights by highlighting the main contribution of the research and its implications for theory and practice.

 

2. In the introduction, the authors show the context, literature review and importance of study. However, the introduction misses significant information, such as: What makes the applied methodology suitable and superior in comparison to existing studies?, What is the expected new insight gained by applying the methodology?, and research question.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. In the rewritten manuscript, the Introduction section has been clearly and completely modified. We have revised the Introduction section to include much more information to explain the scientific problem. The Research level of scientific problem has been highlighted. We have also added and explained the main research question that his research has addressed; and the main aim of our research has been reconstructed. Also, our new theoretical insights allowed us to construct the methodological basis of the study, allowed us to justify the research design and to distinguish the stages of the study: all these points has been incorporated into the rewritten Introduction.

Therefore, in the view of the authors, the rewritten introduction contains all the relevant information justifying the answer to the question: Why is the methodology we use appropriate and superior compared to the existing studies? What are the new insights gained through the methodology and the question of research?

 

3. The second section shows the conceptual problems in implementing responsible research and innovation (RRI) in science and industry. This section is good developed. However, it important to determine how paper to analysis these problems.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. In the second section of the rewritten manuscript, we added two new paragraphs where it is explained in detail. The Introduction of the rewritten manuscript also contains a very detailed addition to our position.

 

4. Third section shows research design. These sections could be improved indicating the process of survey, significance, the structure of survey with questions, categories of analysis, selection of stakeholders and to explain the qualitative methods used in the narratives obtained.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. Indeed, the description in this section was not detailed enough. These shortcomings pointed out by the reviewer in the comment have been corrected. Information about criteria (which reflected the main questions in the survey) and indicators ( how they were checked) was described in the paper. All possible questions concerning social capital there are in World Bank paper (Grootaert, et al. 2004). What questions were chosen the reviever can see in text on page 10. Information about indicators used in statistical analysis is described on pages 10-11. Shortly, we used such indicators because we have here qualitative variables. Section 3 has been adjusted and supplemented on pages 9-11.

 

5. In the next section, the paper describes the results. This section could be explained with more detail according to categories stablished, qualitative methods used and triangulation problems.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. We have added relevant explanations on pages 12, 15 and 17. Explanations as to why these particular methods were used are given in section 3.

 

6. Discussion could be improved including the relation with specific results, strengths and shortcomings of this analysis, and a short outlook on further research requirements and possible research extensions.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. Appropriate corrections have been made in the rewritten manuscript in section 5.

 

7. Conclusions could include political implications of research.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. Corrections have been made in the rewritten manuscript. We have added a new paragraphs on pages 20-22.

Reviewer 3 Report

The research topic is interesting and encourages readers to follow the manuscript. However, I have some comments to increase the quality of the research as follows.

1. I recommend the authors rewrite the abstract section. The current version is mainly focused on the methodology. I think it would be better to shorten the method and try to provide more insights by highlighting the main contribution of the research and its implications for theory and practice.

2. The main aim and objective of the research are not clear. Please modify this section (Lines 83-96) and specifically outline the main aim and also the main research question that this research has addressed.

3. In line 114, the authors have written "In our view, a good premise for RRI development is created by the phenomenon of science democratization [10, 11, 12]". If this is your viewpoint, why have you cited three different references? Please be careful with citation issues and check this in the whole manuscript.

4. Please double-check the consistency of the English style of writing in the whole manuscript. There is some inconsistency within the text with a combination of American and British styles. For instance, "towards" is British, and "toward" is American. No matter which one is used, but it should be unified and consistent.

5. What are the main steps of the social capital survey conducted in late 2019 and early 2020 in Poland and Lithuania? Please add a short explanation to the paragraph in lines 246-259. The same about the questions regarding social capital proposed by the World Bank which have been used in your research?

6. Have you ever thought about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sustainability of cooperation between stakeholders from different sectors, including businesses, government, and civil society? Please add a paragraph in the discussion section and try to cover this issue. In this regard please cite the following articles and highlight your contribution compared to them. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126660

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01372-6

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We would like to thank you for the very thorough review and helpful comments and suggestions. These comments have been carefully addressed. Our point-by-point responses are listed as follows. Modifications have been highlighted in the revised manuscript.

 

1. I recommend the authors rewrite the abstract section. The current version is mainly focused on the methodology. I think it would be better to shorten the method and try to provide more insights by highlighting the main contribution of the research and its implications for theory and practice.

Answer: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. In the revised manuscript, we have revised the Abstract section to include sentences to justify knowledge gap and to explain the key findings and our contributions. We provided more insights by highlighting the main contribution of the research and its implications for theory and practice.

 

2. The main aim and objective of the research are not clear. Please modify this section (Lines 83-96) and specifically outline the main aim and also the main research question that this research has addressed.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. In the rewritten manuscript, the Introduction section has been clearly and completely modified in accordance with the reviewer's recommendations. We have revised the Introduction section to include much more information to explain the scientific problem. The Research level of scientific problem has been highlighted. We have also added and explained the main research question that his research has addressed; and the main aim of our research has been reconstructed. Also, our new theoretical insights allowed us to construct the methodological basis of the study, allowed us to justify the research design and to distinguish the stages of the study: all these points has been incorporated into the rewritten Introduction.

 

3. In line 114, the authors have written "In our view, a good premise for RRI development is created by the phenomenon of science democratization [10, 11, 12]". If this is your viewpoint, why have you cited three different references? Please be careful with citation issues and check this in the whole manuscript.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. We wanted to emphasise in this sentence that a similar view on the democratisation of science is also presented in the literature. Undoubtedly, the previous version of this sentence was inaccurately stated. Therefore, following the reviewer's recommendation, we have modified this sentence accordingly to avoid this shortcoming. This sentence has been changed.

 

4. Please double-check the consistency of the English style of writing in the whole manuscript. There is some inconsistency within the text with a combination of American and British styles. For instance, "towards" is British, and "toward" is American. No matter which one is used, but it should be unified and consistent.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. The English style of writing has been checked. Now we use only British English.

 

5. What are the main steps of the social capital survey conducted in late 2019 and early 2020 in Poland and Lithuania? Please add a short explanation to the paragraph in lines 246-259. The same about the questions regarding social capital proposed by the World Bank which have been used in your research?

Answer: Thank you for your comment. On the World Bank website there is a publicly available set of questions on social capital arranged according to the 5 dimensions of social capital (The questionnaire part was prepared according to the logical scheme proposed by the World Bank (Grootaert, et.al., 2004). Considering the purpose of the research 10 questions were chosen. Finally, 8 questions were used for the article, the content of which is included on page 10 of the manuscript. Also questions presenting the characteristics of the respondents were provided. In this way it was possible to choose the appropriate respondents. It should be emphasized that only the answers of those respondents who are continuing their education and have contact with business, i.e. either work or cooperate with business, were used for the study. The characteristics of the research sample are presented in Table 1 in the manuscript. A full additional description of the research process is completed on page 9.

 

6. Have you ever thought about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sustainability of cooperation between stakeholders from different sectors, including businesses, government, and civil society? Please add a paragraph in the discussion section and try to cover this issue. In this regard please cite the following articles and highlight your contribution compared to them. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126660;   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01372-6

Answer: Thank you for your comment. We added on discussion section a paragraph about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sustainability of cooperation between stakeholders from different sectors. We would like to point out that in the Introduction part of the rewritten manuscript the COVID 19 pandemic is also widely discussed.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors addressed my reviews and the manuscript is improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have addressed my previous comments achieving to improve the paper that it is suitable to publish in the journal.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks to the authors for revising the manuscript. My concerns have been properly addressed. I recommend it for publication.