Rural Digital Innovation Hubs as a Paradigm for Sustainable Business Models in Europe’s Rural Areas

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper focuses specifically on a review of rural digital innovation hubs and its relationships in regard to socio-economic, environmental, and cultural benefits. The paper gives a review of the progress of the concept of rural digital innovation hubs including its business model, technical and sector specific expertise, as well as the policy instrument. Its effect is a comprehensive study, which is an example of dedicated authors work.

I find the issue relevant. The results can help outline strategies on local digital innovation hubs.

In my opinion, due to the obligation of the reviewer I would like to make a few comments:

In the introductory part describe the research gap addressed by the paper by providing recent contributions which highlight this gap.

Although it is a descriptive article, the authors could graphically present the arguments of the selected literature results. The authors should be able to interpret the main findings on the literature reviewed, either on policy and/or non-policy level, assembling relevant information and synthesizing it for the readers. 

Section on Research methods and techniques could be entitled Material and Methods. In this section provide a justification why the literature review on rural digital innovation hubs, or a particular case study Divina Wine Hub Šmarje, is scientifically valid and comprehensive in order that the results of your research questions could be further verified.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents a novel and relevant study, based on a literature study and empirical data from a successful case, focusing on rural digital innovation hubs and its importance for sustainable development. The topic is interesting and important for digitalization/development in rural areas although it is somewhat difficult to understand the contribution of the paper. Having a clearer line of argument and a more narrow focus would increase the contribution considerably.

 

 

Introduction

The research gap is reasonably described and the purpose relevant, although it can be further clarified. What is it that you would like to focus on? Is it key elements of sustainability in rural areas, universal inclusion, or sustainable rural development strategy, etc?

 

2. Research methods and techniques

You have a lot of research questions and I believe the paper would improve by focusing on just a few of them. Would it be possible to narrow these down to two or three questions? I can’t really see an explicit answer to them in your conclusion. I believe that you have interesting data presented in your case and wished that you should focus on that.

 

The case study methodology is poorly described. Is it possible to describe how the study was conducted in more detail (also connecting it to a more precise purpose)?

 

3-5. Theory

These chapters present a good overview of theory, but comes back to the same challenges and difficulties over and over again, which becomes confusing for the reader. Much of the problems that rural areas face is spread throughout these three chapters. Too much information about positive and negative effects of digitalization. Difficult to follow your line of argument. Do you need everything to make your points? Can you restructure these chapters to better fit what you can discuss in the coming chapter?

Mutual mutuality, isn’t that at tautology?

 

5.1 Empirical data

This should be an own chapter to differentiate it from theoretical findings. It is also confusing to make references to literature here if it is your own data?

Is it possible to present more/only data here and move some of your suggestions/findings to Discussion? For example the propositions you make in the end? You present a lot of good findings but it would have been better to first present data and then analyze them in the coming chapter.

 

6 Policy recommendations

Difficult to understand how you come to these recommendations. If this chapter is only findings from literature I would suggest move it up before empirical data or take it away.

 

7. Discussion

Here I would have expected that you discussed findings from theories and empirical data. I think you have a good opportunity to discuss findings that you presented in your empirical chapter here and for example start developing a first draft of a guideline for rural DIHs.

 

 

8. Conclusion

In the present state it is difficult to see how you can draw these conclusions.

You also need to connect back to your RQs and answer them.

 

Spelling and grammar.

Some strange sentences and semantic errors. Also, there is a lot of different concepts in your paper. Do you need them all to make your point?

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The reviewed manuscript deals with potentially interesting problems related to sustainable business models in rural areas. The paper requires thorough improvement in the direction of obtaining a scientifically valuable text. Its structure, essential literature items defining the state of knowledge, research questions, presentation of research results, and discussion of the obtained results indicating the importance of findings in the context of current work mainly require reflection and improvement.

Particular remarks are as follows

1. The title of the manuscript is not concise and relevant because it is vaguely worded, too long (more than 20 words), and not easy to quickly understand what this paper is about. A correct title should contain up to a dozen words and be in 2 lines at most (currently, it takes up to 4 lines).

2. It would be desirable to improve the content of the Abstract, i.e., in addition to presenting the background and broad context of research, the purpose of the study should be clearly emphasized, the research methods used, and the article's main findings should be presented in a more interesting manner.

3. At the end of the 'Introduction' section, it is worth highlighting the study's primary aim and its main findings.

4. The current state of the research field is not adequately presented in the 'Introduction' section, and the key publications cited in this section should be rethought. In the current version, about half of them are temporary websites. It is necessary to refer to recent and significant publications in this field.

5. In general, the number of references to websites should be limited throughout the text of the article. For example, the website address in position [13] in the ‘References’ is no longer valid, and no content is available at the given address.

6. The methods described in the 'Research Methods and Techniques' section are not very sophisticated, and they sound not very interesting.

7. The results of the research are not presented legibly.

8. The research questions are unclear, and there are too many of them. Sub-questions are not necessary.

9. There is no clear reference to the research questions in the further content of the paper. The 'Discussion and Directions for Future Research' section is very content-poor; section titles shall be written with capital letters. A large number of research questions results correspond to narrow interpretations and experimental conclusions.

10. It is worth rethinking the structure of the paper to improve the readability of the obtained research results and the related discussion.

11. There are minor punctuation mistakes throughout the manuscript.

12. Lack of subject-verb agreement is visible in lines 14, 36-37.

13. An abbreviation needs to be introduced once only.

14. There are repetitions of content, e.g., line 71.

15. Wrong choice of lexical items can be noticed in line 75.

16. Incompatible style is used, e.g., in lines 75-76.

17. Confusing terminology and expressions are used in line 89.

18. Line 95 presents a wrongly used grammar tense.

19. There are unnecessary repetitions (e.g., in line 99, lines 103-105).

20. Conversational style is inappropriate when writing a scientific paper (e.g., in lines 112, 120-126).

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for you thorough work with improving the paper!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We are thankful for your inputs and recommendations which helped in significantly improving our manuscript.

Sincerely,

Simona Stojanova in the name of authors.  

Reviewer 3 Report

The reviewed manuscript has been significantly improved compared to the previous version. The changes made in the paper's structure and the title are correct. Modifications to research questions and linking to conclusions are also appropriate. The article is less chaotic and easier to understand. The text contains linguistic errors, and moderate changes are required in this regard. Proofreading should be performed to correct stylistic, grammar and punctuation mistakes.

The entire text requires careful correction. Only some examples of errors are listed below.

Line 54 – no comma in front of ‘that’.

Line 53-60 – the sentence is much too long.

Lines 70-71 – repetition of the subject ‘they’.

Line 75 – the modal verb ‘should’ uses the bare infinitive only.

Line 82 – ‘illuminate’ – wrong verb.

Line 84 – missing comma after ‘which.’

Line 87 – the definite article is missing before ‘case’.

Line 117 - lack of consistency in terms of grammar: it should be ‘it begins with … it is’.

Line 119 – repeated relative pronoun ‘which’.

Line 132 – the removed words ‘of the’ are necessary in the sentence.

Line 146 – repeated verb: ‘support’ and ‘supporting’.

Line 168-169 – repetition: following.

Line 178 – punctuation mistakes – missing comma after ‘this’.

Line 178 – heavy construction with six nouns next to each other.

Lines 180-181 – the confusing structure of the sentence results in lost meaning.

Line 181 – unnecessary comma.

Line 186 – abbreviations should not be used in titles.

Line 188 – the comma is not necessary.

Line 193 – confusing choice of the noun ‘text’ – probably ‘paragraphs’ would be better.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf