Fostering Responsible Innovation through Stakeholder Engagement: Case Study of North Carolina Sweetpotato Stakeholders
, Sebastian Zarate 2,3, Sarah Kathleen Barnhill-Dilling 2, Shelly Hunt 4, Daniela Jones 4 and Jennifer Kuzma 2,5Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for submitting an interesting case study. I do not have any specific comments. However, it would be better if you could discuss the technologies of interest in your introduction.
In lines 48-50, you mentioned Real-Time technology assessment and constructive technology assessment but have not provided any context of what these technologies are, how they are used, what the objective is, how it will help the stakeholders. The introduction section appears to be ambiguous and may need to be improved.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
- Thank you for submitting an interesting case study. I do not have any specific comments. However, it would be better if you could discuss the technologies of interest in your introduction.
RESPONSE: Thank you for reviewing our article. We have now revised the introduction to provide more details regarding technology assessment, as suggested. See lines 48-66 in revised manuscript.
- In lines 48-50, you mentioned Real-Time technology assessment and constructive technology assessment but have not provided any context of what these technologies are, how they are used, what the objective is, how it will help the stakeholders. The introduction section appears to be ambiguous and may need to be improved.
RESPONSE: Thank you for this suggestion. We agree with you that the introduction could benefit from more details in these regards. In response, we have now revised the introduction to provide more details on models for stakeholder engagement as well as more details related to technology assessment. Revisions are made in lines 48-66 of the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors, thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting case study manuscript. The paper is filling a lack of knowledge overview in the current scientific literature about the agricultural stakeholder engagement in research and technology adoption, within the context of a specific case local product community.
The aim and the objectives are clear. In general, I can say that the paper contains useful information of previously published research on the topic, especially for policy makers.
Although the authors surface their conceptual and theoretical contributions and the relevant scientific literature is very well reviewed and discussed, the originality of the research and its contribution to the specific field is not sufficiently documented. Also, some statements in the paper should be supported by more evidence and relevant references (eg L. 32-36, 57, 177-179, 194-196).
Empirical results are clearly presented, and the discussion provide a better understanding of them, which are consistent with the development and the findings of the study. The practical implications of the research show an in-depth analysis of the research literature and the objective. However, in my opinion, much of the conclusions should be given in the "Conclusions" section rather than in the "Discussion" section of the manuscript (eg L. 513-542). Also, statements that have been mentioned in the "Discussion" of the manuscript (eg L. 537-542) should not be repeated in the "Conclusions" section (eg L. 557-562). Some statements are repeated elsewhere in the paper (eg L 81-83/112-114).
The paper has good quality of communication, in general is well structured (the table are excepted) and quite easy to read.
I agree with the Authors that the stakeholder and community engagement are critical for the successful development of new technologies that aim to be integrated into sustainable agriculture systems. It is very useful a relatively simple, low-cost approach to eliciting stakeholder and community needs within a local agricultural context to improve sustainability. There are many gaps in the current research on this specific field, and the topic is worth publishing after following minor revisions mainly to the discussion and conclusions, but also to the references and tables style.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
- Dear Authors, thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting case study manuscript. The paper is filling a lack of knowledge overview in the current scientific literature about the agricultural stakeholder engagement in research and technology adoption, within the context of a specific case local product community.
The aim and the objectives are clear. In general, I can say that the paper contains useful information of previously published research on the topic, especially for the policy makers.
RESPONSE: Thank you. We appreciate your positive support for the manuscript.
- Although the authors surface their conceptual and theoretical contributions and the relevant scientific literature is very well reviewed and discussed, the originality of the research and its contribution to the specific field is not sufficiently documented. Also, some statements in the paper should be supported by more evidence and relevant references (eg L. 32-36, 57, 177-179, 194-196).
RESPONSE: Thank you for your suggestions to include more aspects of the originality of the research. We have now edited the text to strengthen how this project is original, in lines 113-119 of the revised manuscript. In addition, we have provided additional evidence and references in lines 38, 66, 73, 198-199, and 215-216. We also added an additional reference related to technology assessment in the introduction (i.e., Rodemeyer et al. 2005).
- Empirical results are clearly presented, and the discussion provide a better understanding of them, which are consistent with the development and the findings of the study. The practical implications of the research show an in-depth analysis of the research literature and the objective.
RESPONSE: Thank you.
- However, in my opinion, much of the conclusions should be given in the “Conclusions” section rather than in the “Discussion” section of the manuscript (eg L. 537-542). Also, statements that have been mentioned in the “Discussion” of the manuscript (eg L. 537-542) should not be repeated in the “Conclusions” section (eg L. 557-562). Some statements are repeated elsewhere in the paper (eg L 81-83/112-114).
RESPONSE: We appreciate the reviewer’s thorough review of the results, discussion, and conclusions sections. We understand the reviewer’s preference to have some statements only reside in the conclusions section as opposed to the discussion and the conclusion section. After careful review, we would prefer to keep the general format of the paper so that the discussion provides an overview of the implications of the results and synthesizes key findings. We feel this will help the reader more clearly understand the key themes that arise from the results. Then, the conclusion section aims to capture and highlight the main points of the work.
In the case of the text that describes the utility of the study to demonstrate a relatively “simple, straight-forward, and low-cost approach to eliciting stakeholder needs…” (lines 543-547 in revised manuscript), we consider this sentence of value in the end of the discussion as it highlights the utility of the approach taken to engage stakeholders in the case study. Nonetheless, to respond to your comment, we have also revised and trimmed the text in the conclusion to be more brief (lines 561-565 in revised manuscript).
We also note that in the case of lines 81-83 (now 96-98) and lines 112-114 (now 132-133), the two sentences are similar but not identical. The first is “For the previously mentioned reasons related to engaging agricultural stakeholders in research and technology adoption, we developed a customized approach to engage stakeholders within the context of the local sweet potato community in North Carolina,” and the second sentence is “For these reasons, the Sweet-APPS project developed a tailored approach to engage a range of stakeholders within the project’s technology development and innovation processes”). Nevertheless, we have slightly modified the second sentence to reduce similarities, by removing “For these reasons” (see lines 132-133).
- The paper has good quality of communication, in general is well structured (the table are excepted) and quite easy to read.
RESPONSE: Thank you for your positive comments overall. In regard to Table 1, we included it in the methods section since it may be rather difficult for the reader to review and understand the results section without having more specifics regarding the interview questions. Therefore, we have chosen to include Table 1 in the methods and then include more details of the interview questions and process in the Supplementary Information. However, to improve the format of the table, we have revised its properties so that the table header (that shows “Theme,” “Interview Question,” and “Parameter investigated” are shown when the table breaks over pages.
- I agree with the Authors that the stakeholder and community engagement are critical for the successful development of new technologies that aim to be integrated into sustainable agriculture systems. It is very useful a relatively simple, low-cost approach to eliciting stakeholder and community needs within a local agricultural context to improve sustainability. There are many gaps in the current research on this specific field, and the topic is worth publishing after following minor revisions mainly to the discussion and conclusions, but also to the reference and table style.
RESPONSE: Thank you for your comments to the manuscript. We have reviewed each reviewer comment in detail and revised the manuscript accordingly. This includes revisions to the introduction section, inclusion of some additional references in the introduction to support the statements, consideration of text in the discussion and conclusion section, and a minor update to Table 1 in the methods. We thank you for considering our manuscript for publication.
