Supply Chain Complexity and Its Impact on Knowledge Transfer: Incorporating Sustainable Supply Chain Practices in Food Supply Chain Networks
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAlthough it deals with a very appropriate topic in SCM, complexity management, the article has some shortcomings that do not recommend publication in its current state. Such shortcomings are surmountable and may be removed in a future new commit.
Are they:
1. The article focuses on reducing the complexity of SC (line 307), but recent research talks not about reducing but about controlling complexity according to competition priority. If an SC wants to be efficient and responsive, it must reduce complexity. But if you want to be resilient or agile, it must increase complexity by adding alternatives that increase cost and decrease quality but reduce vulnerability (see Toyota's problem in 2011);
2. The authors confuse complexity with complication (line 41 and others), which contradicts one of the foundations of complexity theory;
3. The authors insert two strange elements into the study: technology or knowledge transfer and sustainability. It would have been much better to focus on producing a methodological artifact that could measure the complexity of SC (at no point does the study talk about entropy or Shannon). If an instrument for measurement exists, the first step toward control would have been taken;
4. The authors reach an obvious conclusion: Product complexity, process complexity, decision-making complexity, and consumer complexity are drivers of complexity. These four constructs could even be the first layer of a measurement artifact, a tree-like structure, as long as each branch was supported by a robust set of indicators, which was not done;
5. The authors interviewed 27 respondents to obtain qualitative data. Usually, 8 to 10 similar respondents provide much more than half of the information. I think only a few respondents were needed, but since they exist, a scale could have been used to discover more statistically interpretable information on the topic numerically. Extracts of speeches from a universe of 27 respondents contribute little, as this is not an in-depth case study.
6. In general, the formatting of the article and the distribution of content could be better. I suggest following a more canonical form, with Introduction (no graphs or tables, just the research question and the derivation of a research gap based on keywords and research in the Scopus database or similar), robust review on complexity in SC (no need to talk about the four theories, as they did not contribute to the final purpose) and proposition of a measurement artifact, method (survey with a Likert scale for the artifact items and an open scale for any items not included in the artifact), discussion of the result, and implications (including measurement methodologies complexity control). The current version showed disregard for the appearance of the text, which is unacceptable in a high-level publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe reviewed paper (Supply chain complexity and its impact on Knowledge Tranfer: Incorporating sustainable supply chain practices in food supply chain networks) presents an interesting an up-to-date problems related to supply chains. The authors fairly state that the supply chain complexity has been increasing and it is advisable to reduce it to effectively manage supply chains.
The methodology of the study is properly designed - authors chose qualitative method of semi-stuctured interviews to identify and investigate the main supply chain complexity factors which influence the process of knowledge transfer - that seems to be appropriate taking into ccount the complexity nature of the reserach problem. The research material gathered were analyzed using text-mining tool. The results showed that the process complexity has the highest impact on knowledge transfer. It was concluded based on lgistics companies but the authors explained the limitation of their study sufficiently.
I find this work valuable and worth publishing.
A few technical notes to the authors:
1. Consider moving table 1 to the appendix
2. line 628 - check the refference
3. Figure 2 - it seems that some captions were left untranslated
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper examines the relationship between supply chain complexity and knowledge transfer in the food sector, on the basis of interviews with experts in the sector. I think the review of the literature is thorough and the empirical study provides relevant insights regarding the focal relationship. I do think that some aspects could use more explanation. Specifically:
1. I think the academic contribution of the study (comparing the effects of different types of complexity) is clear as such, but I don't think that using NVivo constitutes an academic contribution (as you seem to suggest on page 2 and 22). This is a very commonly used tool in qualitative analysis.
2. It seems you don't provide a clear definition of process complexity, which makes it hard to understand what your main conclusion (that this type of complexity is most important) means. Is process complexity the same as what you refer to on page 7 as "dynamic difficulties"? I think it is important to provide an explicit definition of all types of complexity you discuss.
3. I did not completely understand figure 3. Particularly, what is the role of the boxes labelled "technological advancements" and "knowledge transfer" at the top and the bottom of the figure?
4. Regarding the methodology, I don't think a semi-structured interview is the same as an exploratory interview (as you claim on page 9). An unstructured interview is generally even more exploratory than a semi-structured one, I would think. Also, did you really draw a random sample (p. 9)? If so, what sampling frame did you use? Regarding data analysis, I think it is best to explicitly indicate what type of analysis method you used (thematic analysis, grounded theory, ...).
5. In the results, honestly I was missing a bit of depth. In the current version it seems that the main conclusion of the paper- that "process complexity" is the most important type of complexity for knowledge transfer - is supported mainly by Figure 6, which provides only quantitative data (percentages). Given that this is a qualitative study, I would expect some explanations by respondents of how and why this type of complexity is important. Currently, the only qualitative evidence provided for this conclusion seems to be a brief quote at the bottom of page 16, which merely seems to state that process complexity is the most important factor without any further explanation. I would think it is better if you could provide more elaborate qualitative evidence here (if available).
6. In Figure 8 (which is important because it visualizes the main findings), I was wondering why the dotted arrows go from knowledge transfer to complexity and not (also) the other way around. The main conclusion of the paper seems to concern the effect of complexity on knowledge transfer (so the other way around), although you also discuss the effect of knowledge transfer on complexity. So I think it would make sense to visualize these relationships through two-way arrows.
7. In the discussion of limitations (page 22), I think you could explain more why they are limitations. You now only seem to very briefly mention some possible limitations, without further explanation. In general, for limitations I think it is important to explain how and why they could have lead to different results. For example, regarding the focus on process complexity, what types of complexity were left out of the study (you mention some types in the next paragraph, but without defining them)? Regarding software, what other software than NVivo could have been used, and how could that have affected the results? What other types of participants could have been included, and how could their views have been different?
Good luck with the further development of your paper!
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageI think overall the English is okay but some formulations could be clearer, such as:
"previous research lacks attention and literature" (p. 2)
"problems between the system's complexity and its dependency" (p. 7)
"how variable the performance of a process changes" (p. 17).
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors still confound complexity with complicated. Please amend at Table 1, Process complexity. Revise the entire text to ensure no further misleading
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI think you have adequately incorporated most of my comments on the previous version. I do have a few remaining ones:
1. In your definitions of the different types of complexity (p. 8-9), I did not quite understand your definition of "consumer complexity": "fulfilment of customer needs and requirements which creates a sustainable and resilient supply chain partnerships with the customer" to me seems to be a definition of customer *satisfaction*, not complexity.
2. In the quote related to "process complexity" on page 16, it was not yet clear to me exactly how it links to your definition of this concept, because it seems the interviewee does not refer to a large number of steps. This quote may therefore need some explanation.
3. In the discussion on limitations (p. 22), I think you do not yet explain how some of the limitations could affect/explain your findings. Particularly, (why) do you think that using other software could generate different findings? And in what way could the other sectors you mention (automotive etc.) be different?
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Thank you
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
