Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is appropriate for publication due to the actuality of the theme and the well-supported literature review and methodological approach. However, some changes must be conducted before publication, as indicated below:

Research gap. The authors present the importance of the research for the region and agri-food industry. However, it would be interesting to state the research gap, indicating the theoretical gap that the study addresses. My suggestion is to include in the introduction a paragraph explaining the importance of combining a specific set of variables to explore the implications on innovation. I suppose this is the main novelty of the article, and should be highlighted.

In this same line of thought, the authors should explicit the key contributions in the discussion and summarize them in the conclusions. What can be seen in the discussion is that the authors are presenting other studies that align with the results of the study, which is adequate. However, the authors should also indicate where their study adds new knowledge.  

Conclusions. I believe research limitations are missing. It would be helpful to include also a paragraph with managerial implications. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper identifies influential factors for the innovative performance of the agri-food industry. The case-based approach is used to achieve the aim of the study. Finally, the authors found that the most dominant factors are Management, Strategy, Structure, Culture, Climate and Market Orientation. This is an interesting article and timely in the field of the agri-food industry. I have the following comments.

1. The abstract should be reformulated. The abstract is an extremely important and powerful representation of the article. The authors should describe better their research, the main contributions and results, and the conclusions that might be drawn from these results.
2. Introduction section presents relevant details about the background and motivations behind the study. But, authors have not supported these details with appropriate references. Authors are suggested to include recent relevant references in this first section. Many good articles available on the agri-food industry, for instance, see below

Developing and validating an innovation drivers' measurement instrument in the agri-food sector.

Sustainability implementation challenges in food supply chains: A case of UK artisan cheese producers.

Exploring the relationship between ICT, SCM practices and organizational performance in the agri-food supply chain.

3. A state-of-the-art overview of the problem is provided in the introduction, but it is more of the type "researcher X did Y" rather than an authoritative synthesis assessing the current state-of-the-art. Where do we stand today? What seems to be the best methods/models? Have they been properly designed?
4. Research gaps identified from extant literature are not effectively and clearly expressed in this manuscript. I would suggest including one comparison table and separate subsection to showcase the clear research gaps. See the below article where authors included a summary table and research gaps section to show gap explicitly.  

Green food supply chain design considering risk and post-harvest losses: a case study.

5. Most of the influential factors in figure 1 are taken from the literature then what is authors contribution here? Why have authors not taken experts opinion about these factors?
6. Do authors feel that data collected from only Five Extremaduran agri-food companies are sufficient to make claims presented in this study?
7. What are the managerial and theoretical contributions to the study?
8. Please expand the conclusion. A conclusion is like the final chord in a song. It makes the listener/reader feel that the piece is complete and well done. You want them to feel that you supported what you stated in the manuscript. You then become a reliable author for them, and they are impressed by that and will be more likely to read/cite your work in the future.
9. There are some minor grammatical errors in the paper which need to be corrected.

On the ground of the comments above, I recommend minor revision. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf