Key Competencies of Agricultural Managers in the Acute Stage of the COVID-19 Crisis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study is of potential to present a useful, careful analysis of key competencies of agricultural managers in the crisis that advance our understanding of what should crisis managers pay attention to in the acute stage of COVID-19 crisis. The method and results, which the authors have documented, are clear enough to be convincing to readers. However, Introduction, Theoretical Background and Discussion are not enough.

As follows are some more specific comments for the author(s) to take into consideration in revising the manuscript.

The paper is not sufficiently grounded in Introduction. There's no real effort to offer a discussion of crisis characteristics of COVID-19, such as the impact on agricultural production, changes in the lives of residents, etc., which leads to the applicability of the results of this paper to other types of crisis events. Therefore, the innovation of this paper based on COVID-19 is also reduced.

In Theoretical Background section, the selection of employee performance (EP) measurement indicators lacks supporting basis. I suggest to the authors to look for some classic theories of performance management and present a review of the literature on employee performance examine.

Line 426: In the acute phase of the crisis, teamwork proved to be a slightly less important mediating factor in the transfer of the effect of competencies of crisis management on employee performance. The impact, however, was also significant.

This statement is in contradiction with the previous part of the literature review on teamwork (TW). For example, " TW is a tool for effective involvement of employees in necessary business activities in times of crisis and consequently contributes to feelings of satisfaction and safety, to increase loyalty and employee confidence, to increase their performance and overall business performance." Meanwhile, the accuracy of this conclusion needs to be supported by the conclusions of previous similar studies.

Line 437: Partly surprising was the finding that cognitive diversity in the crisis management of agricultural enterprises does not significantly affect the performance of employees. Given the published studies on its importance in relation to innovative behavior, we assumed a higher impact in times of acute crisis.

Teamwork is very important for crisis managers to gather resources and strength to deal with the crisis. However, the conclusion in this paper is not consistent with the general cognition in the academic. So, I suggest to the authors to present more discussions in detail about differences between results by the present study and the previous works and analyze the reasons for the difference in detail.

Table 5．What is CCR in Line 359 under Controls?

I hope the authors continue working to improve this paper, and I hope my feedback is helpful in this regard.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you very much for the valuable comments that were really helpful to us. We have tried to incorporate them and we think they have added value to our manuscript. Change tracking is turned on in the manuscript document. However, many changes only resulted from a change in the number of cited literature. Important changes are marked in red. Below you will find your notes on our manuscript and our answers.

1. The paper is not sufficiently grounded in Introduction. There's no real effort to offer a discussion of crisis characteristics of COVID-19, such as the impact on agricultural production, changes in the lives of residents, etc., which leads to the applicability of the results of this paper to other types of crisis events. Therefore, the innovation of this paper based on COVID-19 is also reduced.

We have added a new section (lines 46-58) to the introduction, which describes the current challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic facing the agricultural sector around the world. We also mentioned possible future developments there.

2. In Theoretical Background section, the selection of employee performance (EP) measurement indicators lacks supporting basis. I suggest to the authors to look for some classic theories of performance management and present a review of the literature on employee performance examine.

Of course, we agree with your opinion. However, our intention was to point out to the fact that in the phase of an acute crisis, these indicators are not essential, but on the contrary, the perceived feelings of employees in the individual items defined by us are extremely important. This is because managers cannot monitor quantitative indicators but focus their attention on creating a safety climate for their employees if they want to ensure farm processes and food supply for people while protecting the health of their employees when they feel concerned about their own health.

Our intention was to highlight this fact in the paper and to create a certain implication for managers in terms of their orientation not to quantitative indicators of employee performance, but to those listed by us, which are extremely important in the health crisis.

3. Line 426: In the acute phase of the crisis, teamwork proved to be a slightly less important mediating factor in the transfer of the effect of competencies of crisis management on employee performance. The impact, however, was also significant.

We have added our opinion to this note to the discussion (lines 461-466):

Since in our study the indirect effect was observed in the form of three variables, the strength of its action was divided into these three parts and the effect of TW was therefore weaker only in comparison with IS. If we examined only TW as a mediation variable, its indirect effect would be higher and therefore we can conclude that our findings are consistent with the findings of other studies on the significance of TW in crisis conditions (Abdolshah et al., 2018[71]; Nedkovski et al. [73], 2017; Bogan & Dedeoglu, 2017[74]; Ali, Lei, & Wei, 2018[75]).

4. Line 437: Partly surprising was the finding that cognitive diversity in the crisis management of agricultural enterprises does not significantly affect the performance of employees. Given the published studies on its importance in relation to innovative behavior, we assumed a higher impact in times of acute crisis.

We added more discussions in detail about differences between results by the present study and the previous works and analyze the reasons for the difference in detail (lines 477-487).

5. What is CCR in Line 359 under Controls?

We fixed to CCM. We apologize for the typo.

 

One more time, thank you for the very time devoted to our manuscript, valuable advices and detailed reading of our contribution.

Reviewer 2 Report

This study offers an interesting and stimulating reflection on the relationships between competencies of crisis management and their impact on the performance of employees in agricultural enterprises by focusing on a specific case study. In the following, some suggestions that my help clarify some points.

Some of the criticalities related to the intro and theoretical background are clarified in the methods in which the nature of the study becomes clearer (e.g. in terms of variables used and mediating role of some of them). However, in the following I report some criticalities that might drive the reader throughout the paper (also in the introductory sections).

Intro:

p.2 lines 62-81 the list of studies carried out on managerial skills needed in time of crisis is interesting, but I would recommend adopting a critical lens to analyse the main aspects (e.g. common traits) highlighted by these studies. Maybe this literature might support the constructs used by the authors in their model. The authors refer to the content of competencies of crisis management (which is also a focal variable of their model), but they never clearly provide a definition in the introduction. A clear definition only appears in p.7 (lines 263-265).

Theoretical background

p.3 lines 109-113 The authors highlight that the different phases of the crisis (including pre and post crisis) are strictly interconnected. The authors claim that preparedness/managerial skills of organisations before the crisis is fundamental to identify the signals of an upcoming crisis. The reader might expect some references to studies that might be discussed at this point. E.g., what skills are we talking about and why? The pre-crisis phase might be important as well as the acute crisis phase and it might deserve more attention (also given that the different phases are strictly interconnected). However, the immediate point discussed afterwards does not seem to be connected to this claim. In the following paragraphs the authors refer to communication skills and leadership /decision-making in relation to the acute phases. The focus is on how communication is successful in handling a crisis, especially in the acute phase. Therefore, I understand that there is a connection between the phases, but it is not clear what this connection is. Are we referring to communication skills in both pre-crisis and crisis? If this is the case, how can communication skills anticipate the crisis? My interpretation is that a connection between existing internal communication models and preparedness to deal with emergencies exist. The authors might make it clear. The authors might organise this section by providing their definition of CCM (and theoretical justifications), then introducing and developing the competences needed in time of pre-crisis, and finally analysing/isolating the skills fundamental for handling the acute phases.

Hypotheses

The previous point is directly connected to the formulation of H1. The hypothesis refers to competences in crisis management associated with employee performances. However, they should clarify what these competences are. Are we still talking about “internal communication skills” and management of reliable information? The authors should make this clear by providing a specific definition of competences. The intro might benefit from a linear/systematic organisation of the text by phases (pre-acute phases) and identification of the competences to be analysed.

Other aspects relate to the hypotheses 2-7, which should be also clarified. I found some aspects confusing. Teamwork and Information sharing seem strongly related to the managerial level. Cognitive Diversity seems of a different nature. CD seems more related to an interaction between individual component (see also items used to capture this individual perception) and managerial dimension. Finally, EP sounds like an outcome of the entire process. Can the authors please clarify the different levels? This might also be represented in fig.1

Why should not the hypothesis in lines 333-334 be split into 3 sub variables?

e.g. H1a “The dependence between competencies of crisis management and employee performance is mediated by information sharing,

H2b. … by teamwork

And H2c. … by cognitive diversity of crisis management

Variables

The authors use a CFA to confirm the consistency of the three factors related to communication, leadership and decision-making. Since CFA is usually used against a solid theoretical apparatus, I am wondering how the authors selected the items to be included in each construct. I would like to see a robust discussion behind the theoretical reasons and support from the literature.

I have also some questions related to the construction of CD. In the case of IS and TW the items are related to the perception of the effects of each item by the employers. By contrast, the items included in the CD construct seem related to providing a definition: CD: “Cognitive diversity is manifested in crisis management by different ways of thinking”, “…by different knowledge and skills”, “…by different perceptions of the world”, “…by different beliefs about right and wrong”. Maybe, the questionnaire should be included in an appendix to help clarify some of these issues.

Conclusions

Some claims in the conclusions sound a little bit speculative: “Information overload is not appropriate because it increases uncertainty, fear and anxiety”. How can we deduce this?

The conclusions might highlight the contribution of these paper also in theoretical terms.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you very much for the valuable comments that were really helpful to us. We have tried to incorporate them and we think they have added value to our manuscript. Change tracking is turned on in the manuscript document. However, many changes only resulted from a change in the number of cited literature. Important changes are marked in red. Below you will find your notes on our manuscript and our answers.

1. Intro: p.2 lines 62-81 the list of studies carried out on managerial skills needed in time of crisis is interesting, but I would recommend adopting a critical lens to analyse the main aspects (e.g. common traits) highlighted by these studies. Maybe this literature might support the constructs used by the authors in their model. The authors refer to the content of competencies of crisis management (which is also a focal variable of their model), but they never clearly provide a definition in the introduction. A clear definition only appears in p.7 (lines 263-265).

We have added the definition of CCM to the introduction, followed by a brief description of the current state and the definition of the research gap.

2. Theoretical background: p.3 lines 109-113 The authors highlight that the different phases of the crisis (including pre and post crisis) are strictly interconnected. The authors claim that preparedness/managerial skills of organisations before the crisis is fundamental to identify the signals of an upcoming crisis. The reader might expect some references to studies that might be discussed at this point. E.g., what skills are we talking about and why? The pre-crisis phase might be important as well as the acute crisis phase and it might deserve more attention (also given that the different phases are strictly interconnected). However, the immediate point discussed afterwards does not seem to be connected to this claim. In the following paragraphs the authors refer to communication skills and leadership /decision-making in relation to the acute phases. The focus is on how communication is successful in handling a crisis, especially in the acute phase. Therefore, I understand that there is a connection between the phases, but it is not clear what this connection is. Are we referring to communication skills in both pre-crisis and crisis? If this is the case, how can communication skills anticipate the crisis? My interpretation is that a connection between existing internal communication models and preparedness to deal with emergencies exist. The authors might make it clear. The authors might organise this section by providing their definition of CCM (and theoretical justifications), then introducing and developing the competences needed in time of pre-crisis, and finally analysing/isolating the skills fundamental for handling the acute phases.

We have incorporated your proposal into this part.

3. Hypotheses: The previous point is directly connected to the formulation of H1. The hypothesis refers to competences in crisis management associated with employee performances. However, they should clarify what these competences are. Are we still talking about “internal communication skills” and management of reliable information? The authors should make this clear by providing a specific definition of competences. The intro might benefit from a linear/systematic organisation of the text by phases (pre-acute phases) and identification of the competences to be analysed.

Other aspects relate to the hypotheses 2-7, which should be also clarified. I found some aspects confusing. Teamwork and Information sharing seem strongly related to the managerial level. Cognitive Diversity seems of a different nature. CD seems more related to an interaction between individual component (see also items used to capture this individual perception) and managerial dimension. Finally, EP sounds like an outcome of the entire process. Can the authors please clarify the different levels? This might also be represented in fig.1

Why should not the hypothesis in lines 333-334 be split into 3 sub variables? e.g. H1a “The dependence between competencies of crisis management and employee performance is mediated by information sharing, H2b. … by teamwork And H2c. … by cognitive diversity of crisis management

In H1 we introduced CCM, which are then analyzed. For H2 – H7 (converted to H1a – H1f) – we adjusted the different levels to Figure 1. We agree that Teamwork and Information sharing are strongly related to the managerial level and Cognitive Diversity to an interaction between the individual components. The EP presents an outcome of the entire process.

The main hypothesis expresses the essence of mediation, therefore it is presented as a summary hypothesis of all examined variables (lines 363-364):

1. The dependence between competencies of crisis management and employee performance is mediated by information sharing, teamwork, and cognitive diversity of crisis management.

We denoted it as H1 and the individual partial hypotheses as H1a... H1f. Based on this, we formulate further hypotheses as follows:

H2. CCM are positively related with IS in times of crisis. – H1a

H3. IS in times of crisis is positively related with EP. – H1b

H4. CCM are positively related with TW in times of crisis. – H1c

H5. TW in times of crisis is positively related with EP. – H1d

H6. CCM are positively related with CD. – H1e

H7. CD is positively related with EP. – H1f

4. Variables: The authors use a CFA to confirm the consistency of the three factors related to communication, leadership and decision-making. Since CFA is usually used against a solid theoretical apparatus, I am wondering how the authors selected the items to be included in each construct. I would like to see a robust discussion behind the theoretical reasons and support from the literature.

I have also some questions related to the construction of CD. In the case of IS and TW the items are related to the perception of the effects of each item by the employers. By contrast, the items included in the CD construct seem related to providing a definition: CD: “Cognitive diversity is manifested in crisis management by different ways of thinking”, “…by different knowledge and skills”, “…by different perceptions of the world”, “…by different beliefs about right and wrong”. Maybe, the questionnaire should be included in an appendix to help clarify some of these issues.

We agree that the CFA was created in order to confirm, verify the previously known, expected existence of factors. We also used it because we wanted to avoid common method bias at the same time, because in research of this type, we are fully aware of its existence and CFA is one of the tools to avoid this bias.

The questions (statements) of the independent variable were selected on the basis of an extensive literature search on the given topic and extracted were those, which were common to the individual views of the authors. The composition of the variables is given in the appendix.

5. Conclusions: Some claims in the conclusions sound a little bit speculative: “Information overload is not appropriate because it increases uncertainty, fear and anxiety”. How can we deduce this?

The conclusions might highlight the contribution of these paper also in theoretical terms.

We apologize for the mistake in the text. Instead of overload, the word should be lack. We fixed that mistake.

We also added the theoretical contribution of our paper to the conclusions (lines 501-508).

One more time, thank you for the very time devoted to our manuscript, valuable advices and detailed reading of our contribution.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors allocated substantial effort into improving the quality of the manuscript. I am satisfied with the revised version of the paper and recommend published in this journal.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for the very professional work during the review and the effort to improve our manuscript. Best wishes.