PONE-D-23-00850Collaborative Innovation Evolution of Logistics and Manufacturing industry in ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Xiuling,

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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: Yes

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: Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, I appreciate the opportunity to review your paper, which title is:

Collaborative Innovation Evolution of Logistics and Manufacturing industry in China

The topic is very interesting and important. The subject is significant and relevant and the study contributes to the development of scientific knowledge. The problem presented in relation to the results is very useful, however, the article could be improved on several points:

Title: The title is clear, expressive and acceptable to me.

Abstract is well structured and more or less clear, but there are some missing parts. Rather, focus on the importance of the topic and the relevant (or main) question. The research objectives are not defined, the scientific gaps and the goal are missing. The wording of the second result is not clear and a final conclusion is also missing.

Introduction is well-structured, clear and well-written at the present form. The first impression of reading the introduction is that it is brief but informative and focusing on the narrowly defined topic. However, the introduction should focus much more clearly on the importance of the topic, research goals and scientific gaps, correlating context and purpose. It should be more expressive and comprehensive. In addition in the introduction some new literature sources should be cited especially in the following areas.

a) Main scientific issues and latest debates in the field, scientific uncertainties and gaps between the theories. I suggest incorporating prestigious international journals with foreign authors.

The literature review. The literature review is moderate and adequately supports the topic.

Data sources and methodology:

The methodology is clear, but about sample selection you should add some more important information about database, how and where it can be found even if it is not public for everyone. Some reference is needed. Secondly, please explain what “other statistics” mean.

Please correct or explain the followings:

a) Second equation is not well edited.

b) Please cite the spatial Dubin model correctly and Moran's index too.

c) Please use Arabic letters for the database city names.

Research findings (Conclusions and suggestions)

The conclusions are well structured, but the limitations of the model and future research directions are lacking. Please provide further suggestions for generalizing the model and results. How can stochastic factors affect the presented result and which factors can affect the uncertainty behaviour?

The paper has good potential, but the authors need to make a minor revision at this stage. I’m very glad to have the opportunity to read your work.

Recommendation: Minor Revisions Required

Reviewer #2: Review report for the paper “Collaborative Innovation Evolution of Logistics and Manufacturing industry in China”

The applicability of the method. Why do we need application spatial modelling in this study? I did not see the author discussing the reason. Therefore, it is impossible to prove the superiority of this model combination in this article. Need detailed further explanation.

Insufficient expression on innovative explanations. Does the practical significance of this innovation exist? There is a lack of comparison with previous studies of the same kind. For this point, the innovativeness of the author's statement needs further explanation.

Indicator issues. Is it appropriate for the author to directly use research results in similar literatures into the research questions of this article? Is there a better reference standard in similar studies? In the subdivision question of this article, do you need to further improve the research results of other scholars in the index design? Please give a reliable argument for the indicator design.

Literature review. Add more recent papers published in last three years. Remove papers published before 2018. Based on the LR you should define the scientific gap. I suggest authors to read and discuss following papers: Karamaşa, Çağlar, Demir, E., Memiş, S., & Korucuk, S. (2021). Weighting the factors affectıng logıstıcs outsourcıng. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 4(1), 19-32; Stojanović, I., & Puška, A. (2021). Logistics Performances of Gulf Cooperation Council’s Countries in Global Supply Chains. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 4(1), 174-193..

Model selection problem. The research question of this article, does the proposed methodology get better results than the old/existing methods? There is no comparative proof, no analysis of the superiority of the method. Lack of comparison of results under different models. Not that the new method is equally applicable to all problems.

There is no result robustness. The author needs to give more detailed data references or results.

In the part of research status, the outline of the whole research is not clear enough, and more content of multi criteria decision model (method) needs to be added.

The results of the application part of the model need to be rearranged, the readability is too poor, and the graphical results provided can’t make people see the differences under different scene settings.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Gyenge Balázs

Reviewer #2: No

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Collaborative Innovation Evolution of Logistics and Manufacturing industry in China

PONE-D-23-00850R1

Dear Dr. Xiuling,

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.

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Kind regards,

László Vasa, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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 #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 #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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 #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 #2: Yes

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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 #2: All the reviewers' comments have been addressed carefully and sufficiently, the revisions are rational from my point of view, I think the current version of the paper can be accepted.

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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 #2: No

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