Building a Resilient and Sustainable Sorghum Value Chain in Tanzania’s Lake Zone Region

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper addresses topic discussing basic needs of society using the perspective of strategic management. This will receive a lot of attention from scholars. Having said that, I would like to give comments which expectedly improve the content and readability of the manuscript. 

 

Abstract

In scholarly articles, the Abstract typically commences with a concise statement highlighting the research gap, followed by an articulation of the study's objectives. Also, further elaboration on the significance of the research within this topic would enhance the excellence of the abstract.

 

In the abstract, a statement regarding the objective has been provided - i.e., on line 19 - but it remains descriptive in nature and lacks specificity. I would recommend that the authors employ the following statement to delineate the objective: The objective of this study is to analyze how to develop a resilient and sustainable value chain; what method is being employed, what are the roles of participants involved in the value chain and how the process create benefit for all parties involved in the value chain. 

 

Subsequently, it should be accompanied by the exposition of the research methodology and analytical approaches. While the authors have delineated the data collection procedures, I anticipate encountering a succinct elucidation concerning the data analysis methodology, encompassing the utilization of quantitative or qualitative methodologies and any pertinent software applications employed in the process.

 

Introduction

There are some good points in paragraph 1 - 3 (lines 38-78) but the I feel those paragraph are too loose. For this reason, I expect the authors to increase the density of the substance by shortening the paragraph from 3 become 1. 

 

To shorten the 3 paragraphs, the authors could rewrite the text in line 38-78 and present the following points:

1. why does sorghum play a significant role in the Tanzania

2. What is the unsatisfactory condition that lead us to discuss sorghum

3. Why it is now timely and urgent to address value chain for sorghum

 

Answering the above three questions and presenting in the first paragraph of your paper will impress the reader a lot. 

 

At the end of the introduction section, the authors present the objective of the study - lines 106-107 by stating: "This study aims to document the sorghum value chain greening approaches in the Lake Zone Region of Tanzania". However, in my perspective, it is not well connected to previous sentences in the paragraph. There is some missing link here. Prior to the presentation of the aforementioned research objectives, it is advisable for the author to provide an overview of the existing knowledge gleaned from prior studies and delineate the gaps in understanding that necessitate further investigation through this study. This approach enables us to comprehend the context in which the research questions being posed are situated.

 

Also, I would suggest to express it in a question statement or research question. Research questions will guide researchers to the next steps of research activities such as methods being used, data analysis techniques being employed, etc.  

 

In figure 2 and in the text line 144 the authors mention "business model". it is a big jargon that requires further clarification. otherwise, the authors could use different terms. 

 

Materials and method

The authors mention that the data was collected from interviews and categorized into themes. However, I did not see any description of what technique is being used to achieve this purpose. I expect the authors to mention any of these approaches such as content analysis, the Gioia method, grounded theory, or other similar methods. 

 

Without clear clarification regarding what method is being used for analyzing qualitative data, the authors are prone to do over justification on certain facts and findings from interviews, which are typically the findings preferred by the investigators. 

 

Result and discussion

Figure 3 is the picture of the value chain from what is currently happening in the field. Making a description using a picture of what is currently occurring in the field does not contribute to knowledge development in this field. therefore, the authors could add something unique to demonstrate the new understanding resulting from this study or modify the figure to highlight important points resulting from the study. 

 

Last but not least:

The idea of value chain analysis was developed by Michael E. Porter in his book "Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, and I observed a need to enhance comprehension of the subject matter. Therefore, I recommend that the authors read the book and the literature discussing the value chain therein. Porter, M. E. (2001). The value chain and competitive advantage. Understanding business processes, 2, 50-66.

 

The main advantage of your research is that you have a lot of insightful data from the interview which can be used as strong evidence for your research. The comments and feedback provided above will enhance the quality of your research paper, and we would like to express our gratitude for affording us the opportunity to review your research.

Please work with a native English academic copy editor. 

Author Response

Thank you for the comprehensive review. We have attached the responses

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This research is good and will be highly useful to aspiring researchers even though it is not fully new. The manuscript's writing is excellent and well-organized. The following are some brief suggestions that I'd like to make:

1.      The value chain development approach was used in the greening project, together with components that promote socioeconomic sustainability and environmental resilience, which were well defined.

2.      In line 55, the World Bank report is mentioned in [9], but cited in reference to [10]. Therefore, it is advised for authors to modify it.

3.      Akpo et al. [22], is available in line no. 104, but is also available in reference in [23].

4.      Authors should check citations [44–45] are not available in the manuscript.  

 

5.      In figure 2, line 146, the authors used SME abreaction, this is not mentioned in the manuscript but is available in figure 2.

Remove the typographical errors.

Author Response

Thank you for the comprehensive review. We have attached the responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript deals with an important theme related to sustainability and ecology: a greening project with socio-economic features. The authors reported in this manuscript data extracted from actors directly linked to the integrated value chain involved in the project as well as analyzed transcribed documents from several sources.

The idea is to analyze the discourses of people and entities involved in the value chain developments in the region where the project was implemented to share the information supporting future efforts for the greening process.

The literature referenced by the authors is up-to-date and brings the necessary concepts to support the reported project.

The materials and Methods section shows the characterization of the region in its beginning. I recommend separating this characterization into a dedicated section, letting within Material and Methods the presentation of the Greening Approach and the Data Collection and Analysis process.

Please, provide a workflow diagram of the Data Collection and Analysis Process.

I appreciated the form the authors dealt with the data collected from the interviews and transcription. It follows the trend of a discourse analysis considering the project stakeholders. The authors also constructed a corpus, with textual transcription, to perform sentiment and opinion analysis, using tools from natural language processing. It’s a recommendation from my part about this: please, consider for your future works, continuing this research, applying opinion and sentiment analysis on the transcribed texts, and supporting understanding the stakeholders’ intentions in their discourses.

Please, also develop a new section between 3.6 Service Actors and 4. Conclusion and recommendation, to summarize main theoretical and practical implications regarding the analysis you did about the greening project.

In the conclusion and recommendation section, I suggest separating subsections: (a) to evidence the recommendation, (b) to demonstrate the limitations, difficulties, and challenges in your research, and (c) to present further developments/future directions continuing your work.

Author Response

Thank you for the comprehensive review. We have attached the responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Welldone and congratulation with your revision

Need minor checks from native proofreader

Author Response

Reviewer 1
I would not like to sign my review report	Thank you for reviewing the manuscript.
Quality of English Languag (Minor editing of English language required)	We have performed language editing
Is the content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic? (can be improved)	We have improved the manuscript
Are all the cited references relevant to the research? (can be improved)	We have revised the references
Are the research design, questions, hypotheses and methods clearly stated? (can be improved)	We have the hypothesis
Are the arguments and discussion of findings coherent, balanced and compelling? (can be improved)	We have the discussion to the findings
For empirical research, are the results clearly presented? (can be improved)	We have provided clear results
Is the article adequately referenced? (can be improved)	We have referenced
Are the conclusions thoroughly supported by the results presented in the article or referenced in secondary literature? (can be improved) (can be improved)	We have provided a robust conclusion
Comments and Suggestions for Authors : Welldone and congratulation with your revision	Thank you for the complement
Comments on the Quality of English Language: Need minor checks from native proofreader	We have edited the manuscript using the service of a proofreader.