Going beyond Cryptocurrencies: The Social Representation of Blockchain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A considering manuscript has a relevant topic, has a good research design and well-founded interesting conclusions.

Despite this, there are several erorrs and suggestions to the authors:
  
1. Table 2 and 3 do not consider an important blockchain Dimensions- Anonymity.

2. Table 3 - Fix "Simplificatiion"

3. Local research on the scale of one, even such a large country as Brazil, is of less interest to readers of an international journal.   Perhaps the research results can be projected on all or part of Latin America, or at least on Portuguese-speaking countries. After that autors can draw more global conclusions from the study.

Author Response

REVIEWER #1

A considering manuscript has a relevant topic, has a good research design and well-founded interesting conclusions.

Despite this, there are several erorrs and suggestions to the authors:
  
1. Table 2 and 3 do not consider an important blockchain Dimensions- Anonymity.

Thanks for your comment.

In Table 2, we fixed the features of the Privacy category, including the Anonymity issue. Besides, in Table 3, we included Anonymity as one category of the Privacy dimension.

Thanks again.

2. Table 3 - Fix "Simplificatiion"

It was fixed. Thanks.

3. Local research on the scale of one, even such a large country as Brazil, is of less interest to readers of an international journal.   Perhaps the research results can be projected on all or part of Latin America, or at least on Portuguese-speaking countries. After that autors can draw more global conclusions from the study.

Thanks for your remark.

In the Introduction section, we unveiled that Brazil was used in the research as a proxy for emerging markets concerning the social representation of Blockchain and in the last paragraph of this section we set forth our arguments to back that.

Besides, at the Conclusions section, we concluded that the Brazilian respondents disregard blockchain’s potential to enable the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations in Brazil - in the paper considered as a proxy for developing countries.

That way, we believe that the research is useful not only for Brazil, but also for other emerging markets and for academia, since much of the current literature on Blockchain addresses the context of developed countries rather than emerging markets, such as Brazil.

Therefore, a body of knowledge on Blockchain related to the social, political, economic and technological environment of developing countries must be developed to prevent organizations in emerging markets from misleadingly imitating those in developed countries with regard to the development and implementation of Blockchain applications (See the Academic and Managerial Implications subsection at the Conclusions section).

Thanks again for your comment.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Author(s)

I was given the chance to review your research paper titled "  Going Beyond Criptocurrencies: The Social Representation of Blockchain ".  The author(s) have made commendable efforts to write the article with a very interesting area of study for the industry. I therefore find the paper fit for publication in the target journal subject to addressing the following issues:

 

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1490104

Title: Going Beyond Criptocurrencies: The Social Representation of Blockchain

Specific Comments:

The following issues needs to be addressed by the author(s) to improve on the article:

• To correct the spelling of "cryptocurrencies" in the title
• To fix all tables format and font size and type
• To define who are the professionals, and add examples of those professional
• To justify using a bibliographical research and align it with the findings
• To fix figure 1 caption
• How the author identify the total number of users (population) (20,500) users of the Linkedin.
• To correct the spelling of "LinkedIn"

Author Response

REVIEWER #2

Dear Author(s)

I was given the chance to review your research paper titled "  Going Beyond Criptocurrencies: The Social Representation of Blockchain ".  The author(s) have made commendable efforts to write the article with a very interesting area of study for the industry. I therefore find the paper fit for publication in the target journal subject to addressing the following issues:

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1490104

Title: Going Beyond Criptocurrencies: The Social Representation of Blockchain

Specific Comments:

The following issues needs to be addressed by the author(s) to improve on the article:

• To correct the spelling of "cryptocurrencies" in the title

It was fixed. Thanks.

 

• To fix all tables format and font size and type

Thanks. They were all reviewed according to the “Preparing Figures, Schemes and Tables” section of the journal. See more information at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions#figures

 

• To define who are the professionals, and add examples of those professional

Thanks for your comment.

It was fixed. See the fist paragraph of the Data Collection subsection of the Methodological Procedures section, as well as the first paragraph of the Sample subsection of the Results section.

 

Thanks again.

 

• To justify using a bibliographical research and align it with the findings

The social representation obtained was compared with the extant literature on the Blockchain concept. This comparison was discussed and from this discussion conclusions were set forth in the last section of the paper.

The bibliographical research is consolidated in Tables 1, 2, and 3. The comparison between the scientific literature on the Blockchain concept and the Blockchain social representation obtained is presented in Table 11.

Thanks again.

 

• To fix figure 1 caption

It was fixed. Thanks.

 

• How the author identify the total number of users (population) (20,500) users of the Linkedin.

Thanks for the comments. We accessed groups on LinkedIn and WhatsApp about Blockchain in Brazil. These groups had a total of nearly 20,500 users. This was explained in the article (see the Sample subsection at the Results section of the paper).

Thank you again.

 

• To correct the spelling of "LinkedIn"

It was fixed. Thanks.

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is well written and easy to understand. However, few of my feedback can be considered to improve the quality of the paper but all are not necessary.

1. Introduction may be improved, adding the highlights and the problem statements.
2. You could improve writing, link better the ideas flow in the Introduction.
3. Review references because some of them are unstandardized.
4. The difference between your proposal and related works is not clear, you could do details better. I suggest add a comparative table in ''Related Literature'' to contrast your solution in front of related works.
5. You could discuss the relationship between your solution and past literature. You can add few more references in the related area and discuss about them.  e.g.  https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/16/5307 , https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/14/3951

Author Response

REVIEWER #3

The article is well written and easy to understand. However, few of my feedback can be considered to improve the quality of the paper but all are not necessary.

1. Introduction may be improved, adding the highlights and the problem statements

 

Thanks for your comment.

The research problem is presented in the third paragraph of the Introduction section. In addition, we improved the last paragraph of the Introduction section, highlighting why it is important to investigate the social representation of the Blockchain in an emerging market like Brazil.

Thanks again.

 

1. You could improve writing, link better the ideas flow in the Introduction.

 

It was done.

Thanks.

 

1. Review references because some of them are unstandardized.

 

We reviewed the references according to the APA style.

Thanks.

 

1. The difference between your proposal and related works is not clear, you could do details better. I suggest add a comparative table in ''Related Literature'' to contrast your solution in front of related works.

 

Thanks for your observation.

In Table 11, we compare the social representation of Blockchain found in the work (via the Vergès quadrant) with the existing literature on the concept of Blockchain (presented in the Theoretical Background section and consolidated in Table 3). We then discuss the differences between these two approaches.

Thanks again.

 

1. You could discuss the relationship between your solution and past literature. You can add few more references in the related area and discuss about them.  e.g.  https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/16/5307 , https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/14/3951

The discussion between the social representation of Blockchain found in this research and the existing literature on the concept of Blockchain is presented in the Discussion section, being consolidated in Table 11. From this discussion, conclusions are presented in the last section of the article.

In addition, new references, such as those cited above, were included and discussed in the article.

Thanks.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors updated the paper as per my previous comments and therefore article can be accepted as it is.