Benefit Linkage Effect, Organizational Structure and Collaboration Performance: An Empirical Study of the Agricultural Industrialization Consortium in Shanghai, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

the Author did not specify the research objectives of this work. The author needs to provide citations to strong assertions given in the manuscripts. The language is strong and odd and needs to be simplify for easy reading and understanding. Ideas are sometimes cluster and this makes it difficult for it to flow in the mind of the reader. The methodology is poorly written. The study area is poorly described, the variable poorly measured, the analytical tools do not address the anticipated objectives.  the entire section should be re-written in line with a standard scientific approach.

Author Response

Point 1: the Author did not specify the research objectives of this work. The author needs to provide citations to strong assertions given in the manuscripts. The language is strong and odd and needs to be simplify for easy reading and understanding. Ideas are sometimes cluster and this makes it difficult for it to flow in the mind of the reader. The methodology is poorly written. The study area is poorly described, the variable poorly measured, the analytical tools do not address the anticipated objectives.  the entire section should be re-written in line with a standard scientific approach.

Response 1:

Thank you for taking your time reviewing our manuscript throughout. We found your comments are highly helpful to further improve this work.

Based on your suggestions, we’ve made the following revision.

1.reorganize the article structure

2.add more relevant studies in this field

3.further analyze and summarize the theoretical analysis

4.improve the selection of variables

5.make revisions and improvements in other parts

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

See the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Point 1: The paper claims to comprehensively measure the collaboration performance from subjective and objective variables/indicators. However, there is no description of how they were measured (unit of measurement, scale, etc.). Similarly, what are the primary and secondary indices (Table 1), and how were they integrated into one variable, "collaboration performance"? More explanation is required to simplify the expressions.

Response 1:

Thank you for your comments on the measurement of collaboration performance. Sorry that we didn’t explain it clear. As suggested, we’ve provided more explanation on collaboration performance and added illustration of indict system.

Please see lines 119 - 126 and lines 310 - 332.

Point 2: The paper lacks academic rigour, and its contribution to theoretical or empirical literature is not clearly articulated. The findings and discussions need to involve more citations to back the arguments. The paper should cite more empirical and theoretical studies, including some other countries' similar studies.

Response 2:

Your comments on the contribution is very helpful.

We have re-stated our contribution and improved the conclusion and discussion section. Also, more revelant studies are added and cited as references.

Please See the end of the literature section and the conclusion section.

Point 3: In lines 77-79, the paper mentions "Universal Law".; however, it is not stated in the paper.

Response 3: "Universal Law" refers to the relationship between benefit linkage effect, organizational structure, and collaboration performance. Benefit linkage produces resource allocation effect, capitalization effect and correlation effect, which affects collaboration performance, and the impact of benefit linkage effect on collaboration performance is different for joint-stock and non-joint-stock consortia, so the consortia should choose the appropriate organizational structure according to the actual situation.

 

Point 4: The sample design needs to be improved. It is not clear how the sample was drawn, who the respondents were, or how the sample was representative. How did the data collected through interviews and questionnaires compile? What were the 7-point scale categories on which responses were collected?

Response 4:

Thank you for your comments on the sample design parts. They are very helpful.

Based on your suggestions, we have refined and provided more explaination of the sample design. The data used in this study were obtained from the group's field surveys and interviews with consortia in various districts of Shanghai from July to October 2021, as well as from questionnaires distributed to consortium participants through the Shanghai Municipal Agriculture Commission. The respondents were mainly members of the consortium subjects, reflected in the consortium roles (Table 1), and the collected questionnaires were summarized by our subject group. The key parts of the 7-point scale categories are reflected in Tables 2 and 3.

Please see the data section.

Point 5: The paper uses a different term for an explained variable—‘collaboration performance', 'cooperative performance', 'collective performance', 'collaborative performance', etc., which creates confusion. Only one term should be used throughout.

Response 5:

Thank you for your detailed advices.

Based on your suggestion, we uniformly use 'collaboration performance' as the explanatory variable.

Point 6: Descriptive statistics of the explained and explanatory variables should be given along with the regression results.

Response 6:

This comment on results showing is helpful.

As suggested, we have integrated the descriptive statistics of the explanatory and explained variables along with the regression results in Table 5.

Point 7: Variables (X1, x2, x3, x4, x5) used in the regression equation should be properly defined along with their unit of measurement.

Response 7 : Thank you. We’ve clarified the meaning of the variables (x1, x2, x3, x4, x5) in (from lines 387 to 391), and the specific meaning of each variable is shown in Table 4.

Point 8: The discussion on the regression results made in the text (from lines 436 to 517) should be brief and involve the findings of earlier studies and even the government policy supports.

Response 8: Based on your suggestion we’ve revised the results part to provide a more concise explanation of the regression results and compared with relevant literature.

Point 9: In the conclusion section, the researchers write: from the perspective of the correlation effect, joint stock, driven by leading enterprises, is more conducive to promoting the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. Nowhere, such kind of analysis was made in the paper.

Response 9:

Sorry for the confusion. We’ve re-writed this part to make it more clean.

In the second part of the correlation effect analysis, the consortium involves agricultural planting, processing and other industries, promoting the cooperation of agricultural upstream, midstream and downstream, extending the agricultural industry chain, and some consortiums belong to the leisure experience category, providing services such as picking and fishing, thus it can be said that the consortium is conducive to the integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries.

Point 10: Most suggestions in the paper are generic and not backed by the findings.

Response 10:

Thank you for your comments. We have rephrased the recommendations in the manuscript in accordance with the main research content of the manuscript.

Point 11: It would be helpful if the status of joint-stock and non-joint stock consortiums in terms of various performance indicators over a period is discussed after section 2.

Response 11: Thank you for pointing it out. We’d provided more explaination. Some of the consortia we studied in the field were reluctant to disclose various performance indicators, so we used a scoring scale to measure collaboration performance.

Point 12: Key terms used in the paper should be properly defined along with their unit of measurement.

Response 12: Thank you for the detailed comment. We have checked and revised the unit of measurement in the manuscript.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

General comment:

The article is interesting and has been carefully prepared.

Substantive comments / recommendations:

1. The title of the article should indicate that the study concerned Shanghai (China).

2. When presenting the theoretical background, the literature on the subject should be used to a greater extent. In particular, I recommend a wider use of sources concerning the issue of the transaction costs internalisation.

3. The number of sources used is too small. I suggest increasing their number so that it exceeds 20.

4. I propose adding a comment on the assessment of the universality of conclusions and recommendations, taking into account the spatial scope of the research and the specificity of the Chinese economic system.

Formal and editorial comments / recommendations:

1. There is no reference to Table 4 in the main text.

2. It is not recommended that a given section ends with an object (table / figures).

3. Direct vicinity of objects (tables / figures) is not recommended. If possible, they should be separated by passages of the text.

4. References to sources and bibliographic descriptions need to be corrected according to the journal editorial requirements.

Author Response

Substantive comments / recommendations:

Point 1: The title of the article should indicate that the study concerned Shanghai (China).

Response 1: This is a good point. Based on your suggestion, we have modified the article title.

Point 2: When presenting the theoretical background, the literature on the subject should be used to a greater extent. In particular, I recommend a wider use of sources concerning the issue of the transaction costs internalisation.

Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. We have reorganized and improved this section and added more relevant studies to the literature on the topic.

Point 3: The number of sources used is too small. I suggest increasing their number so that it exceeds 20.

Response 3: We have added some previous studies.

Point 4: I propose adding a comment on the assessment of the universality of conclusions and recommendations, taking into account the spatial scope of the research and the specificity of the Chinese economic system.

Response 4: We’ve further improved the conclusions and recommendations section, and explained more on the representative of this study and how it can provides insights.

Formal and editorial comments / recommendations:

Point 1: There is no reference to Table 4 in the main text.

Response 1: We've added reference.

Point 2: It is not recommended that a given section ends with an object (table / figures).

Response 2: We’re adjusted accordingly.

Point 3: Direct vicinity of objects (tables / figures) is not recommended. If possible, they should be separated by passages of the text.

Response 3: We’ve separated them as suggested.

Point 4: References to sources and bibliographic descriptions need to be corrected according to the journal editorial requirements.

Response 4: We have made corrections as requested by the journal.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx