Impact of Government Subsidies, Competition, and Blockchain on Green Supply Chain Decisions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper addresses a two-stage green supply chain consisting of a government, two manufacturers and a retailer, and studied the impact of different strategies. I am glad to read this interesting research. The paper is well organized, and can be published after revisions. Detail comments are as attached.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to review the paper titled “Under different government subsidy strategies, the impact of non-cooperation and cooperation on the choice of Green Technology Innovation Strategy and Blockchain usage Strategy.” This topic is interesting and has great practical implications. I also have some comments, and I will list them in the following.

 

1.     First, the title is too lengthy. I suggest the authors change the title to make it concise.

2.     The authors also should highlight what are their contributions, what’s new findings to the extant research. Do they fill some gaps, or do they solve some debates? It’s not very clear now. Specifically, the authors claim that most of the prior studies don’t consider the choice of companies' R&D strategies, blockchain usage strategies, and the choice of government subsidy options under different competing environments. Then why different competing environments should be considered should be clarified in the section Introduction.

3.     Cooperation and non-cooperation are not definitely exclusive. What would change if a relationship were both cooperative and non-cooperative?

4.     I might miss the explanations in Figure 1. Also, it would be easier for readers to follow if the authors could give an example to explain Figure 1.

5.     Some values look arbitrary. For example, why do the authors take a=5, c=3 in Figure 2. Would the Figure change if the parameters take other values?

6.     The authors should discuss the generalizability of their findings. Would the model still be held in other contexts? What would be changed in other settings, for example, if the number of retailers changed?

7.     What are the practical contributions? The authors should state them in the discussion section.

8.     Finally, please cite some relevant studies published in the journal Sustainability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Title: Under different government subsidy strategies, the impact of non-cooperation and cooperation on the choice of Green Technology Innovation Strategy and Blockchain usage Strategy

1-      This paper examines a two-stage green supply chain comprised of a government, two manufacturers, and a retailer. The effect of government subsidy strategies and the selection of various strategies by manufacturers on innovation in green technology is investigated. This paper therefore synthesises the impact of government subsidy strategy and enterprise strategy selection on green technology innovation and provides a theoretical research framework for government subsidy strategy and enterprise R&D model selection. Hence, I agree that the proposed model provides a novel solution and contributes to the body of knowledge. However, there is a need to improve the structure and numerical analysis of the proposed model.

2-      The abstract of a research paper should also include a statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, an analysis of the data, the results, and a conclusion. In this section, modifications are suggested.

3-      The study's purpose is inconsistently stated throughout the paper. The research must have a distinct focus and objective, which must be reflected throughout the entire manuscript. Therefore, it is strongly suggested that relevant architecture presentation be improved.

4-      You have provided insufficient details regarding the design and architecture employed. Did you evaluate the design's dependability and validity? Before the method section, please state the research questions that guided the study. I believe that the methods section needs to be reorganised. Start with the sample's description. Then, discuss the recruitment of the sample. Then discuss your research methods.

5-      The simulation results not presented and discussion were extremely brief and did not describe the method selected to conduct the performance and evaluation tests.

6-      You need to include a section on limitations of the study and ideas for future research.

7-      Even if the paper is interesting, in my opinion, the paper has some gaps and needs to be restructured. The paper needs a graphical representation of the model. I believe the paper is ready for publication if the above are implemented.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised version is acceptable. 

Author Response

According to the contents of the review report form, we have improved the summary and the cited references to make them more relevant to our research.

Reviewer 2 Report

I suggest a minor revision chance. The paper can be accepted after the

authors make the following improvements.

(1)    The title can be more concise. For example, how about “considering blockchain in cooperation models when making supply chain decision”.

(2)    Extensive literature on government subsidies, competition and blockchain is not include. For instance,

Zhang J J, Guan J. The time-varying impacts of government incentives on innovation[J]. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2018, 135: 132-144.

Yan Y, Li J, Zhang J. Protecting intellectual property in foreign subsidiaries: An internal network defense perspective[J]. Journal of International Business Studies, 2021: 1-21.

Zheng Z, Xie S, Dai H N, et al. Blockchain challenges and opportunities: A survey[J]. International journal of web and grid services, 2018, 14(4): 352-375.

Liao C, Lu Q, Shui Y. Governmental Anti-Pandemic and Subsidy Strategies for Blockchain-Enabled Food Supply Chains in the Post-Pandemic Era[J]. Sustainability, 2022, 14(15): 9497.

(3)    Important work on blockchain technology in supply chain is not included in this section. Please see literature review in the paper of Dutta P, Choi T M, Somani S, et al. Blockchain technology in supply chain operations: Applications, challenges and research opportunities[J]. Transportation research part e: Logistics and transportation review, 2020, 142: 102067.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx