Development and Future Trends of Digital Product-Service Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overview of work:
The originality in this scientific work NEEDS TO BE ENHANCED, as well as the contribution to knowledge.
The aim of this paper is to understand the shift from Product-Service Systems to Digital Product-Service Systems. A structured literature review analyzing peer-reviewed publications results in a set of propositions.
It is well structured and is a contribution to the scientific literature. The literature used as a reference is updated. The work is technically correct, the language is clear and explicit.
Characterization of the problem in relation to the state of the art: There is alignment between problem situation, research question, objectives.
The authors establish a dialogue with the various bibliographical references, carrying out efficient and effective reasoning that allows the reader to understand that the gap identified in organizational practices and in the literature coincides with the research theme.
The research method has its foundations in the literature, and are adjusted to the proposed theme. But it needs to be cited in more detail in the abstract and conclusion.
Bibliographic references: There is Relevance and pertinence. Scope and organization (current and classic; theoretical, specific and complementary),
The main works cited were published in the last 5 years and emphasize the logical chain , in which the author demonstrates that the research is unprecedented and relevant.
Conclusion: it has an analysis of the scope of the objectives. Answer to the research question. Indication of deficiencies/limitations of the method.
A revision in the language and structure of the text is necessary in order to make the text understandable for beginning readers.
In the conclusion, explain how the objectives were achieved and the response to the problem situation was carried out.
1. What is the main question addressed by the research?
The argument and explanation regarding the originality of the scientific work NEEDS TO BE IMPROVED, as well as its relevance in contributing to knowledge.
Conclusion: it has an analysis of the scope of the objectives. Answer to the research question. Indication of deficiencies/limitations of the method.
A revision in the language and structure of the text is necessary in order to make the text understandable for beginning readers.
In the conclusion, explain how the objectives were achieved and the response to the problem situation was carried out.
the introduction could be revised in order to give the writing an appropriate concern for neophyte readers who are starting in scientific documents. The relevance of explaining a historical thread could be useful to readers.
2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address
a specific gap in the field?
the authors were sensitive in choosing the theme that deals with trends recently studied by science. The paper details the gap that is addressed in this paper.
4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?
the methodology is correctly detailed and supports the arguments in a robust way. should be highlighted as a virtue of this paper.
5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?
the conclusions are sufficiently enlightening and address the items discussed throughout the paper.
Future studies are suggested to demonstrate the connection between Industry 5.0 ideas and digital PSS in manufacturing companies.
6. Are the references appropriate?
It is well structured and is a contribution to the scientific literature. The literature used as a reference is updated. The work is technically correct, the language is clear and explicit.
Author Response
Point by point response to Reviewer 1 of Manuscript entitled "Development and Future Trends of Digital Product-Service Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach"
Reviewer 1:
Comment 1: The originality in this scientific work NEEDS TO BE ENHANCED, as well as the contribution to knowledge.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. We incorporated a new set of analysis in Figure 5 in response to the reviewer's suggestion. In addition, we included additional comments in the discussion and conclusion.
Comment 2: The aim of this paper is to understand the shift from Product-Service Systems to Digital Product-Service Systems. A structured literature review analyzing peer-reviewed publications results in a set of propositions.
Response: Thank you for this kind comment.
Comment 3: It is well structured and is a contribution to the scientific literature. The literature used as a reference is updated. The work is technically correct, the language is clear and explicit.
Response: Thank you for your warm words.
Comment 4: Characterization of the problem in relation to the state of the art: There is alignment between problem situation, research question, objectives.
Response: Thank you for your warm words.
Comment 5: The authors establish a dialogue with the various bibliographical references, carrying out efficient and effective reasoning that allows the reader to understand that the gap identified in organizational practices and in the literature coincides with the research theme.
Response: Thank you for this kind comment.
Comment 6: The research method has its foundations in the literature, and are adjusted to the proposed theme. But it needs to be cited in more detail in the abstract and conclusion.
Response: Thank you for your input. We improved our abstract by emphasizing the major contribution of our study. Also, we added a new paragraph in the methodology to better explain data collection procedure.
Comment 7: Bibliographic references: There is Relevance and pertinence. Scope and organization (current and classic; theoretical, specific and complementary).
Response: Thank you for this kind comment.
Comment 8: The main works cited were published in the last 5 years and emphasize the logical chain , in which the author demonstrates that the research is unprecedented and relevant.
Response: Thank you for this kind comment.
Comment 9: Conclusion: it has an analysis of the scope of the objectives. Answer to the research question. Indication of deficiencies/limitations of the method.
Response: Thank you for this kind comment.
Comment 10: A revision in the language and structure of the text is necessary in order to make the text understandable for beginning readers.
Response: We appreciate the suggestion about the proofreading. We sent our paper to the English native speaker for the proofreading.
Comment 11: In the conclusion, explain how the objectives were achieved and the response to the problem situation was carried out.
Response: We are grateful to the reviewer for providing us with the chance to improve the article. In the discussion and conclusion part, we added a new set of analyses that better explain how we achieve our objectives.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper deals with a relevant and hot topic (digital product-service system), conducting a bibliometric analysis. The topic is worthy of investigation and the paper is wells structured. While the importance of the topic, the research gap and novelty, and the methodology are well presented, I believe that the results and discussion sections should be enhanced. Indeed, bibliometric analyses are able to provide more insights, which could be exploited to describe the contents and define possible future research streams.
Abstract:
· Even though you mention the gap that you are trying to fill (“Digital Product-Service Systems' overall worth and expected course of growth are still ignored.”), I would try to stress it more.
Introduction:
· Typo errors before citations 32 and 33: “…prior bibliometric study…” study should be studies.
· I would try to specify the benefits of a bibliometric analysis compared to a bibliographic one. Moreover, in case there are similar bibliographic analyses, I would mention the reasons why your work is relevant. Indeed, bibliometric and bibliographic analyses could be complementary.
Methodology:
· I believe that you should merge the first sub-section (“2.1 Bibliometric analysis”) with the end of the introduction and remove it from the methodology section. Indeed, you mention some of bibliometric analysis benefits in this sub-section.
· In the research string, you specify “EITHER”, but I believe the term “OR” is more frequently used as an operator.
· Some words are written differently when considering American and British English. Thus, I would consider also “servitisation” as the British English variant of “servitization”.
· For the research string, I would consider both singular and plural. For instance: "digital product-service systems" could be written with the asterisk (*) to include both "digital product-service systems" and "digital product-service system". I would do something similar for any occurrence of a plural name.
· I would specify why you are considering the timespan between 2014 and 2022. I would consider the past ten years and include papers of 2023. Moreover, I would specify at least the month and the year during which you conducted the analysis.
· I would specify the criteria that led you to select 260 out of 280 papers.
Research outputs:
· Did you use any software for producing Figure 2 and Figure 3? In case the answer to the previous question is yes, I would mention it.
· I believe that the keywords and content analysis could be deeply extended. Indeed, mentioning the most frequent keywords is usually not sufficient to have an in-depth overview. I would recommend exploiting an open-source software (e.g., VosViewer) to conduct the keywords and content analysis. Indeed, it is interesting to investigate the keywords’ co-occurrence, which would also result in clustering the keywords, providing a better understanding of the different topics.
· I would also go more in-depth regarding the trends of the keywords. For instance, you could specify the average year of the most recent keywords. It could also be interesting to investigate which are the keywords with a higher average number of citations.
Discussion:
· I believe that the most relevant papers should be determined by the number of citations and the citation burst (i.e., how long have they been cited?). I would add something about the citation bursts, which could be investigated through OpenSource software (e.g., CiteSpace).
· I believe that the discussion related to the ten most cited papers is useful and interesting, but it is not sufficient. I would maintain it to highlight the topics of the most cited papers. However, as previously mentioned, I would conduct a content analysis based on keywords’ co-occurrence. Then, you could discuss the most relevant papers for each cluster detected through the keywords’ co-occurrence.
· Prediction of future developments seem a little bit detached from the remaining parts of the paper. Moreover, I would provide more insights into how you determined the future developments. Accordingly, I would suggest studying the temporal evolution of the keywords and understand which are the most recent ones. For this stage, you could also adopt an OpenSource software (I believe CiteSpace is one of the most common ones for this purpose).
English is fine, I would conduct a light proofread.
Author Response
Point by point response to Reviewer 2 of Manuscript entitled "Development and Future Trends of Digital Product-Service Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach"
Reviewer 2:
Comment 1: The paper deals with a relevant and hot topic (digital product-service system), conducting a bibliometric analysis. The topic is worthy of investigation and the paper is wells structured. While the importance of the topic, the research gap and novelty, and the methodology are well presented, I believe that the results and discussion sections should be enhanced. Indeed, bibliometric analyses are able to provide more insights, which could be exploited to describe the contents and define possible future research streams.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. According to the reviewer's comment, we try to improve all parts of the manuscript.
Comment 2: Abstract: Even though you mention the gap that you are trying to fill (“Digital Product-Service Systems' overall worth and expected course of growth are still ignored.”), I would try to stress it more.
Response: Thank you for your input. We improved our abstract by emphasizing the major contribution of our study.
Comment 3: Introduction: Typo errors before citations 32 and 33: “…prior bibliometric study…” study should be studies.
Response: Thank you for this comment. We fixed this technical error.
Comment 4: Introduction: I would try to specify the benefits of a bibliometric analysis compared to a bibliographic one. Moreover, in case there are similar bibliographic analyses, I would mention the reasons why your work is relevant. Indeed, bibliometric and bibliographic analyses could be complementary.
Response: This reviewer's feedback is much appreciated. We properly clarify bibliometric analysis in the Introduction, as suggested.
Comment 5: Methodology: I believe that you should merge the first sub-section (“2.1 Bibliometric analysis”) with the end of the introduction and remove it from the methodology section. Indeed, you mention some of bibliometric analysis benefits in this sub-section.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for this comment. As suggested, we merged the first sub-section (“2.1 Bibliometric analysis”) with the end of the introduction and remove it from the methodology section.
Comment 6: Methodology: In the research string, you specify “EITHER”, but I believe the term “OR” is more frequently used as an operator.
Response: Thank you for your feedback; there was a technical error in the document. We used OR in the string, which we have already fixed.
Comment 7: Methodology: Some words are written differently when considering American and British English. Thus, I would consider also “servitisation” as the British English variant of “servitization”.
Response: We appreciate the string and language suggestions. We conduct in-depth analyses of articles in the field and employ terminology suited for servitization and product-service systems.
Comment 8: Methodology: For the research string, I would consider both singular and plural. For instance: "digital product-service systems" could be written with the asterisk (*) to include both "digital product-service systems" and "digital product-service system". I would do something similar for any occurrence of a plural name.
Response: We appreciate the suggestion about the string. We fixed it in the revised version of the manuscript.
Comment 9: Methodology: I would specify why you are considering the timespan between 2014 and 2022. I would consider the past ten years and include papers of 2023. Moreover, I would specify at least the month and the year during which you conducted the analysis.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. We pick a timeline beginning in January 2014 since that is when the first publication in the field of digital PSS was made. Prior to this time, servitization research was mostly focused on classical PSS. December 2022 is utilized as a crucial date to finish a 9-year time span which is the focus of our proposed research.
Comment 10: Methodology: I would specify the criteria that led you to select 260 out of 280 papers.
Response: We are grateful to the reviewer for providing us with the chance to improve the article. We provide sensitivity analysis and validation of key results to ensure that all papers are in the field of digital PSS according to the mentioned string. With this analysis, we detected 20 papers that are not in the field of digital PSS, and according to this, we reduced the database from 280 to 260 papers.
Comment 11: Research outputs: Did you use any software for producing Figure 2 and Figure 3? In case the answer to the previous question is yes, I would mention it.
Response: Thank you for this comment. The graphical analysis of the bibliographic data was done using VOSviewer software. We mentioned it in revised version of manuscript.
Comment 12: Research outputs: I believe that the keywords and content analysis could be deeply extended. Indeed, mentioning the most frequent keywords is usually not sufficient to have an in-depth overview. I would recommend exploiting an open-source software (e.g., VosViewer) to conduct the keywords and content analysis. Indeed, it is interesting to investigate the keywords’ co-occurrence, which would also result in clustering the keywords, providing a better understanding of the different topics. I would also go more in-depth regarding the trends of the keywords. For instance, you could specify the average year of the most recent keywords. It could also be interesting to investigate which are the keywords with a higher average number of citations.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. According to the reviewer's comment, we use software to perform keywords co-occurrence analysis, which is added as a Figure 5.
Comment 13: Discussion: I believe that the most relevant papers should be determined by the number of citations and the citation burst (i.e., how long have they been cited?). I would add something about the citation bursts, which could be investigated through OpenSource software (e.g., CiteSpace).
Response: We are grateful to the reviewer for providing us with the chance to improve the article. Table 5 now includes the year of publication, and we give thorough content analysis of the publications cited.
Comment 14: Discussion: I believe that the discussion related to the ten most cited papers is useful and interesting, but it is not sufficient. I would maintain it to highlight the topics of the most cited papers. However, as previously mentioned, I would conduct a content analysis based on keywords’ co-occurrence. Then, you could discuss the most relevant papers for each cluster detected through the keywords’ co-occurrence.
Response: Thank you for your input; in response, we added a new paragraph in the discussion that detailed analysis a patterns and co-occurrence of the material based on keyword analysis.
Comment 15: Discussion: Prediction of future developments seem a little bit detached from the remaining parts of the paper. Moreover, I would provide more insights into how you determined the future developments. Accordingly, I would suggest studying the temporal evolution of the keywords and understand which are the most recent ones. For this stage, you could also adopt an OpenSource software (I believe CiteSpace is one of the most common ones for this purpose).
Response: According to the reviewer's comments, we aim to illustrate the relationships between content and keyword analysis and Industry 5.0 principles more clearly. In the updated version, we inserted a new paragraph about it.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript aims to bridge the existing gap in the literature by conducting a comprehensive investigation into the implementation and implications of digital PSS in the context of manufacturing firms. The topic is interesting. However, the manuscript needs more clarity; the abstract needs information that captures the readers' attention, and the methodology needs clarification. The main concern is the manuscript's contribution, which needs to be clearly stated, thus being a weakness in publishing. Some observations and recommendations for the authors are presented.
The abstract did not mention any result at all. Moreover, the authors stated, "Finally, findings of this research demonstrate three new service orientations: resilient, sustainable, and human-centric." However, the document needed to indicate how the authors have arisen to this finding. This is a citation of Ghobakhloo et al. 2022.
Is there a technical or scientific reason to only use one database? Moreover, beyond being "popular," what is the reason to use Scopus as the only source of papers?
Regarding "The most pertinent journals and conferences that released articles in the area are revealed by a study of related sources",
how can the authors ensure that statement?
When conducting bibliometric analysis, there are probabilities of incurring bias, such as selection bias, information bias, and confounding bias. Thus, how can the selection bias be minimized using only one database?
What was the rationale for using papers published from 2014 to 2022?
What criteria were utilized to reduce from 280 to 260 papers?
Figure 2 needs to be clarified. The text is blurred.
Regarding the clarity of the writing, I suggest using an edition service to revise the English writing; minor issues should be revised and corrected; the following are a few examples.
"There is still a gap in the literature that will adequately summarize this subject"
"Zhou and Song conduct bibliometric research in the area of servitization"
Author Response
Point by point response to Reviewer 3 of Manuscript entitled "Development and Future Trends of Digital Product-Service Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis Approach"
Reviewer 3:
Comment 1: The manuscript aims to bridge the existing gap in the literature by conducting a comprehensive investigation into the implementation and implications of digital PSS in the context of manufacturing firms. The topic is interesting. However, the manuscript needs more clarity; the abstract needs information that captures the readers' attention, and the methodology needs clarification. The main concern is the manuscript's contribution, which needs to be clearly stated, thus being a weakness in publishing. Some observations and recommendations for the authors are presented.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper.
Comment 2: The abstract did not mention any result at all. Moreover, the authors stated, "Finally, findings of this research demonstrate three new service orientations: resilient, sustainable, and human-centric." However, the document needed to indicate how the authors have arisen to this finding. This is a citation of Ghobakhloo et al. 2022.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to upgrade our paper. We improved our abstract by emphasizing the major contribution of our study.
Comment 3: Is there a technical or scientific reason to only use one database? Moreover, beyond being "popular," what is the reason to use Scopus as the only source of papers?
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. In the methodology, we introduced a new paragraph that explains in depth why we use one database in our research.
Comment 4: Regarding "The most pertinent journals and conferences that released articles in the area are revealed by a study of related sources", how can the authors ensure that statement?
Response: Thank you for this question. According to the indexed base, we go through every paper and include only the papers from the most reputable journals and conference proceedings.
Comment 5: When conducting bibliometric analysis, there are probabilities of incurring bias, such as selection bias, information bias, and confounding bias. Thus, how can the selection bias be minimized using only one database?
Response: Thank you for your inquiry. We are grateful to the reviewer for bringing our attention to the need to properly clarify the approach. We added a section to the methods section that explains the bias effect. The authors have created a thorough search strategy that makes use of a broad variety of relevant keywords, topic areas, and publishing kinds. This method seeks to cast a wide net and collect a varied range of publications, lowering the danger of overlooking relevant studies. Within the confines of our study topic (i.e. digital PSS), the authors' inclusion criteria are intended to be as inclusive as feasible.
Comment 6: What was the rationale for using papers published from 2014 to 2022?
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. We pick a timeline beginning in January 2014 since that is when the first publication in the field of digital PSS was made. Prior to this time, servitization research was mostly focused on classical PSS. December 2022 is utilized as a crucial date to finish a 9-year time span which is the focus of our proposed research.
Comment 7: What criteria were utilized to reduce from 280 to 260 papers?
Response: We are grateful to the reviewer for providing us with the chance to improve the article. We provide sensitivity analysis and validation of key results to ensure that all papers are in the field of digital PSS according to the mentioned string. With this analysis, we detected 20 papers that are not in the field of digital PSS, and according to this, we reduced the database from 280 to 260 papers.
Comment 8: Figure 2 needs to be clarified. The text is blurred.
Response: We appreciate the suggestion about the Figure 2. We fixed it with the VosViewer software and make new Figure with the same content.
Comment 9: Regarding the clarity of the writing, I suggest using an edition service to revise the English writing; minor issues should be revised and corrected; the following are a few examples.
Response: We appreciate the suggestion about the proofreading. We sent our paper to the English native speaker for the proofreading.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors worked on the observations and now the clarity of the manuscript was improved. Finally, I strongly suggest including pertinent literature from ASI.
It is ok
Author Response
Reviewer 3:
Comment 1: The authors worked on the observations and now the clarity of the manuscript was improved. Finally, I strongly suggest including pertinent literature from ASI.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. According to the comment, we added an explanation about Industry 4.0 and the difference between the bibliometric analysis approach and the systematic literature review covered by the literature from the ASI journal. We added the following references:
- Ananias and P. D. Gaspar, “A Low-Cost Collaborative Robot for Science and Education Purposes to Foster the Industry 4.0 Implementation,” Appl. Syst. Innov., vol. 5, no. 4, p. 72, Jul. 2022, doi: 10.3390/asi5040072.
- Carvalho, A. Chouchene, T. Lima, and F. Charrua-Santos, “Cognitive Manufacturing in Industry 4.0 toward Cognitive Load Reduction: A Conceptual Framework,” Appl. Syst. Innov., vol. 3, no. 4, p. 55, Dec. 2020, doi: 10.3390/asi3040055.
- Ø. Madsen, T. Berg, and M. Di Nardo, “Bibliometric Trends in Industry 5.0 Research: An Updated Overview,” Appl. Syst. Innov., vol. 6, no. 4, p. 63, Jul. 2023, doi: 10.3390/asi6040063.
- M. Duarte, A. Pinto, C. Carvalho, A. Zornoza, and J. Santos, “The Contribution of the User Experiences Goals for Designing Better Cobots: A Systematic Literature Review,” Appl. Syst. Innov., vol. 5, no. 6, p. 119, Nov. 2022, doi: 10.3390/asi5060119.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
