Social Innovation in Olive Oil Cooperatives: A Case Study in Southern Spain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper analyses a case study involving the implementation of social innovation strategies in the area of cooperatives. The paper is informative and good structured; the introduction and literature review provide sufficient background and include sufficient references.
There are some minor revisions are necessary before publication.
Abstract. Some journal policy requirements were not followed, namely: authors did not follow the style of structured abstracts.
Design notes: You should prepare the tables carefully according to the template.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We have improved this manuscript according to your instruction.
Sincerely,
The authors.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
First of all I would like to commend the authors for the very interesting work they have presented. The paper addresses a very interesting topic, connects well with relevant academic literature and present some novel results in a nice manner. Also the writing is good although there are a couple of small typos that can easily be fixed.
One thing that the authors might want to expand on a bit is the implications for theory and practice which a re a bit underdeveloped at this point. It would be nice to see how enabling technologies can have an impact on socia innovation such as the one you present, and how social innovations can also be aligned with circular economy objectives. Here there is some interesting novel work by the following authors that you might want to eave into the discussion.
Kristoffersen, E., Blomsma, F., Mikalef, P., & Li, J. (2020). The smart circular economy: A digital-enabled circular strategies framework for manufacturing companies. Journal of Business Research, 120, 241-261.
Matrapazi, V. K., & Zabaniotou, A. (2020). Experimental and feasibility study of spent coffee grounds upscaling via pyrolysis towards proposing an eco-social innovation circular economy solution. Science of the Total Environment, 718, 137316.
Planing, P. (2015). Business model innovation in a circular economy reasons for non-acceptance of circular business models. Open journal of business model innovation, 1(11), 1-11.
Kristoffersen, E., Aremu, O. O., Blomsma, F., Mikalef, P., & Li, J. (2019, September). Exploring the relationship between data science and circular economy: An enhanced CRISP-DM Process Model. In Conference on e-Business, e-Services and e-Society (pp. 177-189). Springer, Cham.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We have improved this manuscript according to your instruction.
Sincerely,
The authors.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a very interesting piece of research, however, I suggest the following essential improvements:
- move the paragraph "3.1 Context and case study" within the conceptual (2.2), labelling "2.1" the paragraph "social innovation in the context of cooperativism in olive oil".
- within the same conceptual framework (that can be considered the "literature review" of the paper) a separate paragraph on the main characteristics (i.e. legal structure and benefits in terms of taxes or organisation) of the cooperatives (in Spain or in Europe in general) to better frame the context
- the methodology seems to require more literature support, I wonder if the "case study" methodology has been used before to assess successful social innovation in similar businesses.
- while presenting the results I suggest structuring the chapter following the suggested prism of perspectives [100-101], namely 1) social demand, 2) socioeconomic challenge for society as a whole, 3) systemic changes in the direction of a more participatory society. It will help the reader better and systematically understand the results.
- No references provided for the paragraph [180-183]
- Only 2 references provided from the journal "sustainability".
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We have improved this manuscript according to your instruction.
Sincerely,
The authors.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
