Social Network Analysis of the Stakeholders Involved in the Dromedary Sector in the Mediterranean Region

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The work is original

The objectives are well defined

The methodology adopted fits well with the objectives.

Results are well presented and discussed.

In conclusion, the paper is publishable however :

There is a need to (please see attached file) :

- correct some edits

- replace some old references

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Authors’ answer: Thanks a lot for your positive return and the suggestions done in the manuscript.

As required we have:

1. Corrected the date of the ref [7] line 117
2. We have corrected the different editing suggestions in the manuscript, especially replace “infancy” by “its beginnings”

Reviewer 2 Report

A number of substantive and formal remarks should be mentioned :
- line 90 : 'the camel 89 has a triple "work-meat-milk" function'. 'work' means rather 'animal traction' which has disappeared for several years.
So I think 'work' should be replaced by 'tourism'
- Line 266 & 277 :According to figure 5, there is no 'knowledge and training' exchange between peers for Tunisia. But, figure 7 show that there is a good % of benefits obtained from 'Exchange and training' for Tunisia.
Also for morocco, there was a contradiction between figure 5 and 7. So we need to explain more these two figures.
- There is a great difference between camel activities for tourism sector and camel farming for meat-milk chain value.  they don't have the same goals and stakholders. So I think that tourism agency surveys should be carried out (Tunisia and Morocco) in order to not bias the result

Author Response

A number of substantive and formal remarks should be mentioned :
- line 90 : 'the camel 89 has a triple "work-meat-milk" function'. 'work' means rather 'animal traction' which has disappeared for several years.
So I think 'work' should be replaced by 'tourism'

Authors’ answer: thanks for this suggestion. We have replaced work by animal traction. We have specified the change of domain of this function: “We can note that the function of animal traction previously used for agricultural activities is now mainly dedicated to tourism activity for desert trips.”

- Line 266 & 277 :According to figure 5, there is no 'knowledge and training' exchange between peers for Tunisia. But, figure 7 show that there is a good % of benefits obtained from 'Exchange and training' for Tunisia. Also for morocco, there was a contradiction between figure 5 and 7. So we need to explain more these two figures.

Authors’ answer: in Tunisia, the exchanges of knowledge is mainly based on exchanges of “information and experiences” between peers that that we find mainly in the information and experience category in figure 7. it is true that nearly 20% of interviewees in Tunisia mentioned a benefit in terms of training that we better explain in relation to the effects of information transfer and experience.

In Morocco, If the nature of exchanges is relatively diversified including information and experience, service and animal exchange, the main benefit is the “Information and experience”.

In our approach, the benefits are not based on the type of exchanges (included in Fig5) but on according to their perception, what are the main outcomes for these exchanges. We have clarified that in the M&M section (line 189-190).

- There is a great difference between camel activities for tourism sector and camel farming for meat-milk chain value.  they don't have the same goals and stakeholders. So I think that tourism agency surveys should be carried out (Tunisia and Morocco) in order to not bias the result

Authors’ answer: We are not sure to well understand your comment. You mean increasing the sample with more stakeholders in the touristic sector in Tunisia and Morocco to have a more representative sample? We completely agree with this comment even if majority of camel herders who practice a touristic activity have also part of the camel herd running in the traditional system oriented to meat or milk. Moreover this comment fits with our analysis of the limitations of the study presented in 5.3 related to a partial and fragmentary vision of the camel sector (1er paragraph). Here the main originality is the approach in terms of social network in the camel sector that has not been done in previous research work.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Basically, there are things that need to be modified/changed, added and substantiated. 

Introduction has to contain the paper objectives. Maybe is better to separate paragraphs in terms of literature review and combine what is declared as been previous researches (in the Introduction section) in domain with the section 2. Here, in the cited titles it is necessary to individualize the content of the works and not to cite a set of works (for example 1,2,3 or 7-12 or 16,17,18 etc.). It is important to substantiate the topic on a detail of previous researches by underline in every single cited work what is relevant and important for the current subject. Also, because is inserted the CARAVAN project (by the way the link mentioned in the footnote doesn't work!) is important to clarify how this paper is related by any means to this project (collected data from project are used in this research, some project' results are included in the paper findings, the questionnaire was used also in the project etc.)!

Regarding Material and Methods section, the content itself, requires attention, substantiation and detailed explanations. For instance, who designed the questionnaire and on what basis. I took a look on the questionnaire and I consider it as difficult to be completed. Could you say what was the average completion time? I understood that a total of 179 persons were interviewed. OK. But how many declined or refuse to be part of the survey? How were the people who answered the questionnaire chosen? 

The approach used for the social network analysis is insufficient detailed. How you combined quantitative and qualitative research? Could you detailed in terms of quantitative and qualitative variables? For the variables considered, why were no statistical correlations used? You mentioned for the SNA that you used the software GEPPHI! How it works? What kind of data are needed to be gather and entered? Describe the inputs and the outputs when running the software! You have a contribution in terms of methodology? I may say that use only the means from descriptive statistics is not enough in terms of quantitative analysis. Also, another recommendation is to exploit the figures generated in subsection 4.2 in terms of comparison between countries. Is important to define some similar behavior for different stakeholders but also to emphasize the specific differences for countries included in the research. This could be important even for the paper findings and usefulness (could be identified some cultural profiles, rules and laws acting in a certain way through the data processing etc.). Another week point is related to the Conclusion section. In my opinion much useful info is lost from the research findings by not including some aspects developed in the paper. It is necessary to point out, among other things, the actual contribution of the authors to such a field and how these results help, subsequently an interested reader or researcher. What is this work useful for?

On the other hand, the readability of the figures in the Appendix A is not good at all! Please pay attention to this issue!

For sure you need to carry out few rounds of proofreading!

Good luck!

Author Response

Firstly we’d like to thank you for the different comments and suggestions to improve the paper. Please find below the answers to all the comments.

 

Dear Authors,

Basically, there are things that need to be modified/changed, added and substantiated. 

Introduction has to contain the paper objectives. Maybe is better to separate paragraphs in terms of literature review and combine what is declared as been previous researches (in the Introduction section) in domain with the section 2.

Authors’ answer: The paper objective was introduced in the third paragraph of the introduction. But it is true that there was confusion between the objective of the project CARAVAN and the paper objective. By clarity we have specified the objective of the paper (see lines 114-119).

Maybe is better to separate paragraphs in terms of literature review and combine what is declared as been previous researches (in the Introduction section) in domain with the section 2.

Authors’ answer: We fully agree. We have moved the two first paragraphs in the section 2 (first version) corresponding on the literature review on the milk and meat sectors in the Introduction section because these two paragraphs corresponded to previous researchers.

Here, in the cited titles it is necessary to individualize the content of the works and not to cite a set of works (for example 1,2,3 or 7-12 or 16,17,18 etc.). It is important to substantiate the topic on a detail of previous researches by underline in every single cited work what is relevant and important for the current subject.

Authors’ answer: we have specified the relevant information of the different references in link with our work. See lines 57-59 for [1,2,3],  and lines 65-70 for [7-12] and lines 111-114 for [16,17,18] which are now 22;23;24

Also, because is inserted the CARAVAN project (by the way the link mentioned in the footnote doesn't work!) is important to clarify how this paper is related by any means to this project (collected data from project are used in this research, some project' results are included in the paper findings, the questionnaire was used also in the project etc.)!

Authors’ answer: It is true that the link doesn’t work. We have mentioned the new link https://caravan-project.weebly.com/. This paper results from the material collected in the CARAVAN project and the paper findings are completely part of the projects’ results. We have attempted to clarify this in the last paragraph of the Introduction section.

Regarding Material and Methods section, the content itself, requires attention, substantiation and detailed explanations. For instance, who designed the questionnaire and on what basis. I took a look on the questionnaire and I consider it as difficult to be completed. Could you say what was the average completion time? I understood that a total of 179 persons were interviewed. OK. But how many declined or refuse to be part of the survey? How were the people who answered the questionnaire chosen? 

Authors’ answer: the questionnaire has been designed by the research group involved in the CARAVAn project (see lines 302-303). In average each interview required around 30-45 minutes. (line 196-197). We have mentioned the sampling approach in the manuscript (lines 201-203).

The approach used for the social network analysis is insufficient detailed. How you combined quantitative and qualitative research? Could you detailed in terms of quantitative and qualitative variables? For the variables considered, why were no statistical correlations used? You mentioned for the SNA that you used the software GEPPHI! How it works? What kind of data are needed to be gather and entered? Describe the inputs and the outputs when running the software! You have a contribution in terms of methodology? I may say that use only the means from descriptive statistics is not enough in terms of quantitative analysis.

Authors’ answer: We fully agree and we have rewritten this section by giving more details on the method in the new version of the manuscript (see from lines 229-250). Notably we have specified what we included in the qualitative and quantitative variables and the principle of GEPHI. This software can use qualitative or quantitative data (input data). The output is a graph that visualize the links between the individuals. the of link that we want to visualize here is the intensity of links (in the sample) and also the degree of trust. In the present paper the main originality is to use this networking approach to characterize the organization of the camel sector based on an original data set. If this approach is mainly used as a descriptive approach of the network in our approach, we can see the intensity of link between the different actors.

Also, another recommendation is to exploit the figures generated in subsection 4.2 in terms of comparison between countries. Is important to define some similar behavior for different stakeholders but also to emphasize the specific differences for countries included in the research. This could be important even for the paper findings and usefulness (could be identified some cultural profiles, rules and laws acting in a certain way through the data processing etc.).

Authors’ answer: in the figure 9 we have tried to bring out the specificities for each country by using hyperbolas showing the main links between actors in each country. These links reveal some specific features of the structure of the camel sector in each country, in link with cultural, economic or political systems that we have analyzed in the discussion. This country analysis is reinforced with the simplified figure 10. (plus details in Appendix 4)

Another week point is related to the Conclusion section. In my opinion much useful info is lost from the research findings by not including some aspects developed in the paper. It is necessary to point out, among other things, the actual contribution of the authors to such a field and how these results help, subsequently an interested reader or researcher. What is this work useful for?

Authors’ answer: We have revised the conclusion to stress the major finding in the results and highlights the interest of our approach for future research.

On the other hand, the readability of the figures in the Appendix A is not good at all! Please pay attention to this issue!

Authors’ answer: We have redone the 4 figures.

For sure you need to carry out few rounds of proofreading!

Good luck!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, 

Authors' response file is represented by the paper itself without a way to underline/warn about the changes made. I didn't quite understand why such material was uploaded, when it was more appropriate for the authors' answers to go through every observation made in the review, and the authors' successive comment to appear accordingly. Basically,  I had to follow the new version of the paper and the comments inserted directly on the page of the new review by the authors (which made it difficult to read the document).

Some answers clarified certain aspects but there are still issues to which I did not receive answers. I wanted to know the response rate to the questionnaire. I will also explain the logic of this question. The questionnaire is quite extensive (it contains 39 questions, not very simple). I understand that the completion time is somewhere up to 45 minutes. On the other hand, I asked to find out what type of data (quantitative and qualitative input data) GEPHI software uses (by the way, please correct the name, because in some places you inserted GEPPHI). These two things, mentioned above, can become relevant as long as the authors explain how they correlate the information obtained from the processing of the questionnaires with the input data requested by the software. So, on the one hand, the complex content of the questionnaire is justified (through your new explanations......), on the other hand, the need for elements that have to be known in order to use the software is clarified (based on the set of quantitative and qualitative elements...). Also, reading the changes/additions to the conclusions would not be unimportant for the authors to express in detail the limitations of this research/ study.

 

Author Response

Authors' response file is represented by the paper itself without a way to underline/warn about the changes made. I didn't quite understand why such material was uploaded, when it was more appropriate for the authors' answers to go through every observation made in the review, and the authors'successive comment to appear accordingly. Basically,  I had to follow the new version of the paper and the comments inserted directly on the page of the new review by the authors (which made it difficult to read the document).

Authors' answer: We are sorry about that but we have had some difficulties when downloading the new revised version in track mode.

Some answers clarified certain aspects but there are still issues to which I did not receive answers. I wanted to know the response rate to the questionnaire. I will also explain the logic of this question. The questionnaire is quite extensive (it contains 39 questions, not very simple). I understand that the completion time is somewhere up to 45 minutes. On the other hand, I asked to find out what type of data (quantitative and qualitative input data) GEPHI software uses (by the way, please correct the name, because in some places you inserted GEPPHI). These two things, mentioned above, can become relevant as long as the authors explain how they correlate the information obtained from the processing of the questionnaires with the input data requested by the software. So, on the one hand, the complex content of the questionnaire is justified (through your new explanations......), on the other hand, the need for elements that have to be known in order to use the software is clarified (based on the set of quantitative and qualitative elements...). Also, reading the changes/additions to the conclusions would not be unimportant for the authors to express in detail the limitations of this research/ study.

 

Authors' answer: Related to the rate of answers, all the stakeholders have taken the time to answer. We only got some difficulties to find some interlocutors in some remore zones by lack of time or due to constraints of transportation to reach some of them. this explaoned whay we used a digital questionnaire in Algeria (lines 345-346)

Regarding the data used in the software GEPHI, we have used the data collected during the survey i.e. the rate of frequency of their interaction, the degree of functioning given to the relationships (good, medium or bad), the change of the relationships (if degraded, stable or improved)  and the degree of trust (approached by a score between 1 and 10 given by the interlocutor). We have clarified that in the revised version (lines 390-391).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx