Sustainability of the Amazon Nut in Mato Grosso: An Application of the MuSIASEM Method
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is interesting and topical, but in its current form lacks research depth, looking more like a report for the national authorities than an article addressing the broad international research audience of Sustainability. The authors fail to define a clear research framework and emphasize their contribution to the advancement of the field. Detailed comments are provided for each section.
The introduction reviews the existing literature, but fails to employ a critical approach meant to reveal its shortcomings (misconceptions, ambiguities or lack). A paragraph summarizing all these shortcomings is needed before introducing the research goals. Also, there are three paragraphs dealing with the present study in the introduction. One of them deals with the method; it is unclear why the choice of the method is emphasized in the introduction, since the method is not new. Such a presentation diminishes the importance of the study, leaving the impression that the study is not novel, since it employs an existing approach to a case study. The introduction should justify the need for research, emphasizing its new and original elements.
This shortcoming must also be addressed in the abstract, which fails to create a research context and starts abruptly with a statement of the research goals, without creating a framework for it, and justifying why this research is necessary, and what its novel and original elements are.
Although the journal requires separating the results and discussions, the authors merged the sections, and actually the discussions are missing. This crucial section meant to emphasize the importance of the results for the theoretical (conceptual or methodological) advancement of the field by presenting (A) the significance of results - what do they say, in scientific terms; (B) the inner validation of results, against the study goals or hypotheses (this should be related to the lack of goals or hypotheses); (C) the external validation of results, against those of similar studies from other countries, identified in the literature (again, connected to the missing review of the international literature); (D) the importance of the results, meaning their contribution (conceptual or methodological) to the theoretical advancement of the field (related to the lack of a clear theoretical framework); (E) a summary of the study limitations and directions for overcoming them in the future research. Except for part (A) and for part E (misplaced under the conclusions) the section is underrepresented.
The conclusions lack research depth, addressing the case study without going beyond it, by delivering a strong research message to the entire scientific community.
Author Response
The authors welcome comments and suggestions. We try our best to meet all the determinations that we understand as contributions to the improvement of the research.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper aims to analyse socio-environmental metabolism of the productive chain of the Amazon Nut in Brazil. However, the research suffers from positioning itself to academic contribution and suffers from clearly addressing the gap, research methods, contribution and discussion.
My concerns:
- What is female work in the abstract that it is not in any other pnoit of the paper?
- At the theoretical framework, when it comes to semi structured interviews, it is not obvious that who are the interviewees? How they were selected? How many? Therefore, the research methods needs to be revised with details necessary for qual. research
- the document needs proof reading, some times it uses past tense and some times present tense.
-What is HP0 in the Eq 5., many terms in this TAble needs to be clear.
The authors should present evidance on how they come to THA,TET etc. it is not clear now
Fig. 4 is not clear, wgat are those different areas? Alpha etc...Authors need to give clear presentation on any element in Fig. 4
In general the findings are not well presented in the paper. It is not obvious how authors come to the findings through the analysis
There is no discussion section for the paper, where we can see how this work is contributing to the prev. work or this domain.
At the end from my point view this paper was not related to the SI whch the core is CSR.
Author Response
The authors welcome comments and suggestions. We try our best to meet all the determinations that we understand as contributions to the improvement of the research.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article was improved, but it is still hard to read, and the separation of information makes no sense whatsoever. The authors must reorganize entirely their manuscript, putting all information related to the theoretical framework (i.e., previous studies) in the introduction, ending it with the declaration of the study goals; currently, information related to the theoretical framework is found in several sections. All information related to the methods (e.g., lines 87-95) must go to the methodology section. The manuscript should have only five sections: introduction (theoretical issues, review of the literature, research goals), methods (what methods were actually used), results (what was obtained using the methods), discussions (discussing the results against their significance), and conclusions.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments the authors welcome the suggestion. We changed the text to meet reviewers' requests. The authors sought to briefly describe the content and contextualize the previous and current theoretical basis and empirical research more clearly. The authors are grateful for comments on the design, questions, hypotheses, and pertinent considerations regarding the description of the research methods. The authors generally tried to separate the information to make the article “clearer” and intelligible to the reader. The authors wholly reorganized the manuscript. We pay special attention to the reformulation and rearrangement of information related to the theoretical framework in the introduction, ending it with the exposition of the study objectives. The authors are grateful for the suggestion and have changed all information related to the method. Specifically, lines 87-95 we incorporated in the methodology section. The authors appreciate the suggestions and change the manuscript, including five sections: introduction, methods, results, discussions, and conclusions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Most I my comments have been addressed and were responded in the respnose letter.
Author Response
We appreciate the kindness in the comments. The authors apologize, and we are sorry, but the authors completely reorganized the manuscript as requested by reviewer 01. The authors reformulated and rearranged the information related to the theoretical framework in the introduction, closing it with a statement of the study objectives. The authors changed the manuscript, which has five sections: introduction, methods, results, discussions, and conclusions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have addressed all comments and there are no further suggestions. The manuscript can be published in its revised form.
