Supply Chain Sustainability: Influencing Factors and Empirical Study from a Marxist Political Economy Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you very much for the reviewing opportunity for this paper. At first glance, it looks like a very interesting topic, and it is well built both theoretically and methodologically. At below, I have given some suggestions to improve this paper.

• The abstract is generally clear, but it could be more concise and directly state the research objectives, methods, and key findings. The abstract highlights the novel perspective of Marxist political economy, but it could be more explicit about the unique contributions of the analytical framework.

• The introduction provides a solid foundation for the research, but it could benefit from a more in-depth discussion of the challenges and complexities of modern supply chains.

• The thesis statement is clear, stating the intention to propose a novel analytical framework for addressing sustainability challenges.

• The paper could provide more details about the data collection process, including the specific sources of data ?

• The explanation of DEMATEL analysis is adequate, but it could be more detailed, particularly regarding the construction of the direct influence matrix and the application of the decision test method.

• The paper could discuss the validity and reliability of the data and the methods used in the analysis.

• The results are presented clearly, but the discussion could be more in-depth, linking the findings to the theoretical framework and addressing potential limitations.

• The paper provides some policy implications, but it could offer more specific recommendations for policymakers and businesses.

• The analysis provides a thorough understanding of the key factors influencing sustainable supply chain implementation from a Marxist political economy perspective.
• The use of DEMATEL analysis is a valuable tool for identifying the centrality and causal relationships among the influencing factors.
• The analysis offers clear recommendations for improving sustainability in supply chains, focusing on knowledge and technology, financial transfer, and environmental factors.
• The paper effectively integrates Marxist political economy principles into the analysis of supply chain sustainability.
• However, while the literature analysis provides a strong foundation, empirical data could be incorporated to further validate the identified factors and their relationships.
• The paper could benefit from the inclusion of case studies to illustrate how the identified factors operate in real-world scenarios.
• The paper could acknowledge and discuss potential limitations of the study, such as the reliance on literature analysis and the generalizability of the findings.
• The paper could suggest specific areas for future research to build upon the findings and address any identified limitations.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your thorough and professional review. We greatly appreciate your insightful comments, which have been very helpful. In response to your feedback, we have made the following revisions:

1.    The summary section has been made more concise and now includes a description of contributions.
2.    Additional arguments and scientific evidence have been added to the introduction.
3.    We have reviewed and cited more literature to provide stronger evidence for each indicator.
4.    The source and timing of the data are now explained in detail, and the research method explained in detail.
5.    The results section now includes a more specific analysis.
6.    Several tables and figures have been improved.

Thank you once again for your valuable feedback.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review: Supply Chain Sustainability: Influencing Factors and Empirical

Study from a Marxist Political Economy Perspective

1. Introduction：

The introduction does not reflect the background of the research very well. It’s more like an introduction to theoretical concepts. And the article needs to be compared with existing research to highlight the importance of the research.

2. Theoretical Framework and Methods

(1)The article adopts the literature research method, but searching for literature only in Google Scholar is obviously not comprehensive enough, and PRISMA is needed to further sort out the selected documents.

(2)Can a single article determine an important influencing factor? This is obviously debatable. Therefore, it is necessary to explain the reasons for selecting indicators in terms of influencing factors and select 2-3 literature to provide evidence, so as to better prove the effectiveness of model construction.

3. DEMATEL Analysis

(1) Questionnaire surveys and interview surveys are mentioned in the data analysis, so it is necessary to describe the data survey time, the number of questionnaires, and the data collection time, which is crucial to prove the validity of the data source.

(2) Table 2 cannot be included in the article in the form of a screenshot.

(3) The heat map in Figure 2 cannot have data overlap, which is a fatal mistake for a scientific paper.

(4) Lack of data analysis on Table 3, and the overall data analysis is not in-depth enough.

4. Conclusions and Discussion

(1)  This is not a discussion of the results, but more of the shortcomings and future prospects.

(2)  It is recommended to merge Section 3.3 of the article with the Discussion section.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your thorough and professional review. We greatly appreciate your insightful comments, which have been very helpful. In response to your feedback, we have made the following revisions:

1.    The summary section has been made more concise and now includes a description of contributions.
2.    Additional arguments and scientific evidence have been added to the introduction.
3.    We have reviewed and cited more literature to provide stronger evidence for each indicator.
4.    The source and timing of the data are now explained in detail, and the research method explained in detail.
5.    The results section now includes a more specific analysis.
6.    Several tables and figures have been improved.

Thank you once again for your valuable feedback.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have already made substantial revisions, and now the revised paper is much improved and publishable. I recommend it for publication. Congratulations.