The impact of digital economy on the upgrading of manufacturing structure

Ting Chen; Songlan Zhou

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0307184

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 13, 2024
30 May 2024 Decision Letter - Annesha Sil, Editor PONE-D-24-01707The impact of digital economy on the upgrading of manufacturing structurePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chen, 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. Comments from the Editorial Office: We note that one or more reviewers has recommended that you cite specific previously published works. As always, we recommend that you please review and evaluate the requested works to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. It is not a requirement to cite these works. We appreciate your attention to this request. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 12 2024 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, Annesha Sil, Ph.D. Associate Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf. 2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China: "Gap Measurement, Leading Mechanism, and Innovation Leap Research of New Science and Technology Revolution Pilot Technology" (No. 71974041)]. Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 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: No ****** 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 ****** 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: The abstract should be strengthened due to the quantitative indicators obtained as a result of the research. Additional justification of individual issues is required, which is reflected in the attached document. Reviewer #2: The motivation for the research can be improved. At the moment, the problem to be solved is not really clear. The contribution to the field is limited. I recommend that the authors delve deeper into the data to uncover additional findings that can contribute to this area of research. It is also crucial for them to clearly differentiate their findings from previous research. Anyhow, even the available market tests with their experiences in the case industries properly verified preliminarily the results (by retroperspective approach, without longitudinal follow up studies, e.g. Robotic process automation deployments: a step-by-step method to investment appraisal, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 29, No. 8, pp. 163-187.). Results are presented and counted accordingly. Scientific novelty and contribution to discipline could be highlighted more clearly. The relations between academia and companies is rooted in the cultural aspects of organizations, so please also refer to RPA Experiments in SMEs Through a Collaborative Network. In: Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Boucher, X., Ortiz, A. (eds) Collaborative Networks in Digitalization and Society 5.0. PRO-VE 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 688. Springer, Cham ****** 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 ******** [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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-01707_reviewer.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307184.r001
Revision 1
11 Jun 2024 Author Response Dear editor and reviewers, Thanks for offering us an opportunity to improve the quality of our submitted manuscript (PONE-D-24-01707, The impact of digital economy on the upgrading of manufacturing structure).We appreciate very much the reviewers’ constructive and insightful comments. In this vision, we have addressed all of these comments. We hope the revised manuscript has now met the publication standard of your journal. We highlighted all the revisions with Track Changes. On the next pages, our point-to-point responses to the queries raised by the reviewers are listed. Reviewer #1: The abstract should be strengthened due to the quantitative indicators obtained as a result of the research.Additional justification of individual issues is required, which is reflected in the attached document. Response: Thanks to the reviewers' comments, the article has been revised according to the suggestions one by one, the relevant responses are as follows Comment 1: Abstract, It is worth detailing with quantitative values according to the obtained results Response 1: According to the reviewers' comments, We have added the following details: Among them, the mediating effect is 17.5% for the level of independent innovation and 17.4% for the level of the advancement of the human capital structure. The results of the study also found that the upgrading of manufacturing structure cannot be separated from government support, and the influence of government support on t the upgrading of manufacturing structure reaches 44.9%, and government deployment and control is conducive to accelerating the process of advanced manufacturing structure. Comment 2: Introduction, It is necessary to add a link to the information source from which the quantitative data was used, as well as to update the data for 2023 or 2022. Response 2: Thank you to the reviewers for their comments, which have been updated to the latest data as follows: Compared to 2010, the proportion of added value of China's manufacturing industry to GDP dropped continuously from about 32.46% to 26.29% in 2020. Compared with the previous year, the proportion of added value of China's manufacturing industry to GDP increased slightly, accounting for 27.55% in 2021, and the growth rate of added value of China's manufacturing industry was about 18.83%. Comment 3: Reference, Here and further - references to the used literature must be issued in accordance with the requirements. Response 3: The formatting of references in the main text has been modified according to the style of the journal. Comment 4: Literature Review, The literature review should be strengthened by analyzing the latest scientific publications in the field of digitization and IT. It is also worth investigating the impact of digitalization on various spheres and aspects of economic activity.For example: Impact of information and communications technology on the development and use of knowledge https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122519 Opportunities and threats of digital transformation of business models in SMEs. doi:10.14254/2071-789X.2022/15-3/9 Response 4: Thank you for the reviewer's comments, considering that this paper wants to highlight the relationship between the digital economy and the structuring of the manufacturing industry, therefore the impact of digitization/information technology is not highlighted in the literature review of this paper, and in the previous article of my research (Ting Chen. Measurement of Digital Economy Development Level and Analysis of Influencing Factors in Guangdong Province [J]. Research on Science and Technology Innovation Development Strategy, 2023,7 (02): 40-48.), a more detailed study of the digital economy was made, therefore, I do not repeat the description here, thank you again for the reviewer's comments, and if the follow-up is still needed to be supplemented, I will be supplemented with the complete state. Comment 5: Research Hypothesis, The choice of the proposed components is not justified. Response 5: Thanks to the reviewer's comments, because this paper is based on the theory of endogenous economic growth, which selects the variables of technological progress (knowledge), capital and labor, the endogenous economic growth model believes that technological progress is conducive to the increase in the efficiency of labor, and add technology into the labor function in the productivity function. This paper is based on the endogenous economic growth theory of the hypothesis and believe that technological progress (knowledge) not only affects the efficiency of labor, but also has an impact on the efficiency of capital operations. Therefore, WE made changes in the model, add the technology into the function of labor and capital, resulting in the text of the proposed components. Comment 6: Research Hypothesis, Needs more detailed justification Response 6: Thanks to the reviewers' comments, the following changes have been made: According to equation (11) and the analysis above, in the context of the digital economy, gA and gk are always greater than 0, and α is greater than 0 and less than 1. Therefore, the left side of the equation is always greater than 0, as the growth rate of knowledge and capital continues to increase, the output growth rate also continues to increase. Comment 7: Research Hypothesis, It is worth strengthening the rationale with reference to the results of scientific research in this area. Example: Knowledge Management and Economic Growth: The Assessment of Links and Determinants of Regulation DOI: 10.7206/cemj.2658-0845.52 Response 7: We thank the reviewers for comments, and according to the suggestions , the article has cited the relevant literature, and the relevant corrections are as follows: Olena Oliinyk (2021)[16] states that factors such as the ability of new technologies to work with people, the ability to innovate, and the means of communication become determinants of the efficiency of economic development, the shortage of skilled workers slows down the development of business and leads to additional costs for the development of human capital [17], information and communication technologies are able to drive economic growth[18], and increasing the efficiency of innovation is essential for creating competitive advantages [19]. Accelerating the development of the digital economy helps to promote technological progress and the accumulation of human capital, thereby assisting in the structural adjustment of the manufacturing industry, which is of great significance for promoting high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. Reviewer #2: The motivation for the research can be improved. At the moment, the problem to be solved is not really clear. The contribution to the field is limited. I recommend that the authors delve deeper into the data to uncover additional findings that can contribute to this area of research. It is also crucial for them to clearly differentiate their findings from previous research. Anyhow, even the available market tests with their experiences in the case industries properly verified preliminarily the results (by retroperspective approach, without longitudinal follow up studies, e.g. Robotic process automation deployments: a step-by-step method to investment appraisal, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 29, No. 8, pp. 163-187.). Results are presented and counted accordingly. Scientific novelty and contribution to discipline could be highlighted more clearly. The relations between academia and companies is rooted in the cultural aspects of organizations, so please also refer to RPA Experiments in SMEs Through a Collaborative Network. In: Camarinha-Matos, L.M., Boucher, X., Ortiz, A. (eds) Collaborative Networks in Digitalization and Society 5.0. PRO-VE 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and CommunicationTechnology, vol 688. Springer, Cham Response :Thank you for the reviewer's comments, in the digital development of today, all walks of life are trying to break through the bottleneck of industry development through digitalization, the manufacturing industry is no exception, China's manufacturing industry is affected by a number of factors, the development of the current stagnation, this paper attempts to analyze the impact of the digital economy of China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) on the manufacturing industry structure of the seniority, to promote the integration of the digital economy and the manufacturing industry, and to solve the difficult problem of the China's Pearl River Delta (PRD) which manufacturing industry development is hindered through the digital economy. I also realize the many shortcomings of this paper, the research scope is small, and the innovativeness still needs to be strengthened. And, I would like to thank the reviewers for their comments once again, which provide a space for thinking about the research of this paper. Considering the scope of this paper and the research object, as well as the length of the study, I will carefully study the relevant research literature proposed by the reviewers in my subsequent research, and make further studies. Best wishes Ting Chen Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307184.r002
2 Jul 2024 Decision Letter - Yuantao Xie, Editor The impact of digital economy on the upgrading of manufacturing structure PONE-D-24-01707R1 Dear Dr. Chen, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Yuantao Xie 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 #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: The story telling and introduction section lacks clarity regarding the limitations of existing literature. The research purpose, critique of literature, findings are not tightly coherent. ****** 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: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307184.r003
Formally Accepted
17 Jul 2024 Acceptance Letter - Yuantao Xie, Editor PONE-D-24-01707R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chen, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Yuantao Xie Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307184.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .