Competitive Positioning of Mexican Pork in Japan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The authors have addressed all of my comments. However, they could provide more quality content based on my remarks.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

The amendments have successfully been performed. Good luck in your research.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well executed. However, a few matters need addressing.

1. The first variable of Table 2 is not in English

2. The variables are not shown in a summary form, making it difficult to get an overall sense of how they are distributed. I suggest including another table in the revised manuscript showing these. If the authors feel that is too unwieldy, it is worth appending as an appendix. 

3. Although the merit of the paper to scholarly literature is understood by this reviewer, the authors make no explicit statements highlighting it. I highly encourage doing it in at least 2-3 sentences so the future readers can glean the necessary insights.

4. One of the channels through which the findings of this paper implicate the market dynamics of pork (or other meat/agricultural) products is to what extent they excite the appetite for market agents. This often via the allure of speculative profit. In recent times, speculation in these markets have been rife. I encourage the authors to add 2-3 sentences connecting how trans-continental (Mexico-Japan) placements can pique the interests of speculative traders in these products. For evidence on this, feel free to pursue and briefly refer to the following three relevant works.

a. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34677-5_36

b. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2021.100498

c. https://doi.org/10.3390/commodities1010002

I wish you all the best with the paper and look forward to reading the revised draft.

And well done on an interesting work. 

Reviewer 2 Report

This study determines the competitive position of Mexican pork in the Japanese market. The research design and the used methodology are suitable, and the findings are well supported. However, this article has some flaws that I will mention below:

Affiliations are not complete (city and country names are required)

The abstract is very short. One or two sentences should be added at the beginning of the abstract to explain the necessity of determining the competitive position of Mexican pork.

At the end of the abstract, one or two sentences should be written about the application of the findings of this study.

The introduction is fairly well written; however, it fails to state the research problem. Authors should answer the following questions in the introduction:

1- What problem does determining the competitive position of Mexican pork in the Japanese market solve?

2- If the competitive position of Mexican pork in the Japanese market is not determined, what problem will arise?

3- Why is it important to determine the competitive position of Mexico in the Japanese market?

4- Who and how can benefit from the findings of this research?

Subsection ‘1.1 Production and international trade of pork’ should be renamed to Section ‘2. Production and international trade of pork’, and the order of the rest of the sections should also be corrected, accordingly.

The caption of the first table is ‘Global pork meat production. 2021’ while it needs to be changed to ‘Global pork meat production in 2021’. (The same comment for the caption of Figure 1.)

Once again, the authors should also mention the importance of determining the competitive position of Mexican pork in the Japanese market in part ‘2. Production and international trade of pork’. The reader of this article should be convinced that determining the competitive position of Mexican pork in the Japanese market is important.

This article does not have a conclusion section and the discussion section is not complete.

In the discussion section, the authors should compare their findings with the findings in the literature (whether in terms of methodology or theory). In the discussion section, the authors should explain the practical implications of the findings and state who and how can benefit from the findings of this article (in fact, the contribution of this article will be determined).

A separate section under the title of ‘Conclusion’ should also be added to the article. Where the authors, in addition to re-stating the findings, should provide managerial and practical suggestions based on their research findings. Suggestions for future research studies, based on the findings of this research, are also necessary. Finally, if there are any limitations in the generalization of the findings of this article, they should be mentioned in the conclusion section.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for submitting this paper. I have few comments to improve the article. First, there is no literature review section. The introduction is very long and should be split into a literature section instead of the lengthy introduction. Second, your article is very descriptive. More insight into the practical circumstances that are taking place in the pork market(s) is necessary to mention.  Third, there is no conclusion section which is extremely significant in your case. Please provide a conclusions section. This paper should also highlight the practical and social implications more explicitly. This is extremely important. So, please add another section for the implications. Most importantly, the language should be edited. I have spotted several typos and weak sentences. Finally, please add more references to support the strategic view of the discussion. Remember, competitive advantage is a strategic element and needs to be covered from a strategic management perspective. 

Reviewer 4 Report

This manuscript aims to show the competitive position of Mexican pork in Japan during the period of 2000-2020, particularly taking Mexico, the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Chile as selected countries, considered these as the leading purveyors in the supply chain for the Japanese market.

However, I think this research needs to be improved and is not recommended for publication in this journal. The main reasons are as follows:

1.Discussion is rather poor. What is interesting is to discuss your results with already published as well as their importance for the whole scientific community. What is new that you add to the existing body of knowledge, what are strengths and limitations of the study.

2.The overall idea of this study is too simple, the importance of the article is not explained, and literature review and reference are very lacking.

3.This paper needs substantial proofreading.