PONE-D-22-12655An investigation of the impact of human capital and supply chain competitive drivers on firm performance in a developing countryPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Santa,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 16 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Anandakumar Haldorai, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

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4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 2 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

Additional Editor Comments:

The following issues were found:

- Sections needs to be rearranged with proper Abstract, Introduction, Literature, Proposed approach, Result and discussion, Conclusion and Reference.

- Highlights of the Study specified in abstract, it should be comes under introduction section.

- Make sure the Abstract briefly describes the paper as it is used in abstracting and citation services. Keep the Abstract between 200 words (Single paragraph). Do not use any references in the Abstract.

- Make sure that the Conclusion briefly summarizes the results of the paper it should not repeat phrases from the Introduction. Keep the Conclusion to about 200 words. Do not use any references or acronyms in the Conclusion.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Overall the introduction parts that build up the hypothesis is well described, while the experimental methods, results discussion and conclusion parts are weak.

Page2: 2nd paragraph: "98% of country's business" --> What is the metric?

Page14-15: There are two "2.5" in section numbers

Page18: What is the industry sector that this work is focused on? Or is it completely random choice within the region? Is it possible to share the pareto of the rough industry sectors of survey responders?

Page18: What is the definition/criterion of SME and LO in this study?

Page18: How is your survey to SME/LO structured? Can you show the example set of questions?

Page18: How do the survey responders answer to the questions? Is it based on actual business performance metrics (quantitative)? Or are they based on their impression? This aspect is particularly important to how to interpret the results on page21.

Page18: How did you preprocess the survey results to feed them into SPSS/AMOS? Can you show the examples of data processing pipeline or flowchart?

Page18: Is it possible to describe a little more details on SPSS/AMOS parameter settings?

Page19: Table 3 and it's description seem to fit better after "4. Results and Discussion"

Page24: In SME if the outsourcing decision is made by personal interest of the management, where is the assumption coming from? Do you have any data or examples that can be shown? Also does "management's interest" exactly mean? If this is a major factor outsourcing-related responds in the survey seem to be invalid in this study.

Page24-25: The conclusion section is too long, and it is hard to capture the essence of the major discovery.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity offered me to review the manuscript on “An investigation of the impact of human capital and supply chain competitive drivers on firm performance in a developing country” This summary is the observations made as I reviewed the paper.

Review Comments

Theoretically, the paper was introduced with conceptual framework theorizing the human capital and supply chain drivers in relation with firm’s performance, evidence from specific references from key literatures to support their claims.

However reference must be made of recent literatures on the topic which can easily be found and available on google scholars and other search engines.

Methodology deployed is online survey used to capture 600 firms as respondents. The SEM was used in the study was was applicable and workable enough. SPSS and AMOS software were used to analyse the data and for the various tests were performed which yielded feasible results.

The English Language though was fairly good need to be improved. Figure 2 was referenced in the results and discussions write up but it cannot be found in the paper. I suggest Figure 3 should rather be labelled as figure 2.

Fitness; The topic is good enough and fits into the scope of PLOSONE

Therefore, the manuscript need revisions on the issues raised to improve its current form for suitability for publication.

References

Besides adding additional modern references, the current references must be formatted in line with PLOSONE requirements.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: plosone review report 31052022.docx

PONE-D-22-12655R1An investigation of the impact of human capital and supply chain competitive drivers on firm performance in a developing countryPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Santa,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 29 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Anandakumar Haldorai, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Please carefully address the issues raised in the comments and, up front in your revised paper.

Make sure the Abstract briefly describes the paper as it is used in abstracting and citation services. Clearly specify the Purpose, Methodology, and problem findings.

Verify the already published papers in he journal website and clearly prepare the contents according to the standard.

Ex. abstract section not properly developed.

Subsections are not properly numbered,

Paper not properly aligned, Image and table qualities are very poor.

Include a list of six to ten key words after the Abstract.

Spell out each acronym the first time used in the body of the paper. Spell out acronyms in the Abstract only if used there.

You may ignore any suggestion of including self-references by reviewers if not applicable. Follow the proper journal reference format.

Include a paragraph at the end of the Introduction describing the organization of the paper.

Make sure that the Conclusion briefly summarizes the results of the paper it should not repeat phrases from the Introduction. Keep the Conclusion to about 200 words. Do not use any references or acronyms in the Conclusion.

Make sure all figures and tables are referred to in the body of the paper.

It is recommended to use a professional proofread and native English correction. Papers with less than excellent English will not be published even if technically perfect. Complete native correction is recommended

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The detailed premise and background of the survey and statistical analysis are extensively reinforced, and thus I now have more confidence that the literature is more proper to be published. Congratulations on the successful modifications.

Reviewer #2: Review Comments

Manuscript Number: PONE-D-22-12655R1

The manuscript on “An investigation of the impact of human capital and supply chain competitive drivers on firm performance in a developing country” is currently revised to improve the previous issues raised and the comments were adequately catered for in the modification.

The manuscript is modified based on the issues raised in the previous review comments and corrected them as follows;

Adequate recent literature on the topic are now added in the reviewed version;

Additional references are added and formatted in line with PLOSONE requirements;

The English Language is good and acceptable;

The previous wrong numbering of the figures are now corrected to be okay;

The manuscript is now revised and improved in its current form to be suitable for publication.

The topic fits into the scope of PLOSONE. The paper employed a conceptual framework theorizing the human capital and supply chain drivers in relation with firm’s performance, evidence from specific references from key literatures were used to support the claims.

The Methodology deployed is online survey used to capture 600 firms as respondents. The SEM was used in the study was was applicable and workable enough. SPSS and AMOS software were used to analyse the data and for the various tests were performed which yielded feasible results.

Therefore, I recommend it for publication in PLOSONE journal

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: STEPHEN OKYERE (PhD, MBA. PGD, B.ED, CMILT, MCISCM)

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

An investigation of the impact of human capital and supply chain competitive drivers on firm performance in a developing country

PONE-D-22-12655R2

Dear Dr. Santa,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Anandakumar Haldorai, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Recommended for further process.

Reviewers' comments: