Procedural Factors Influencing Forest Certification Audits: An Empirical Study in Romania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments:

This is a relevant and interesting article on certification, however, needs some improvement in terms of clear RQ and analytical frame. 1. The term “contextual factors” seems misleading and should be replace by “procedural” or similar. 2. A clear analytical frame is lacking but needed for clarity of results. This would improve the article from the beginning through all sections.

The text is otherwise very clear and well understandable, but the clearer frame would make the results and findings even better understandable. Finally, the relevance of the research would be improved by a more systematic discussion of the findings.

We need to be aware of certification being currently a very sensitive issue. Therefore, a very clear presentation of questions and findings is crucial for the quality of the research.

Hope my comments are helpful!

 

Specific comments:

1. Introduction

Is clearly written, well grounded in literature and well structured. A few remarks:

Lines 43ff – FSC is presented well, and some remarks on ISO, but a few remarks on PEFC seem lacking but should be included, just for being comprehensive.

Lines 56f – saying “the scientific literature giving interesting insights on the type of NCs related to the FSC principles [20–23]” it would be interesting to read the most important ones. You say something in the next sentence but not so specific on what we learn from refs 20–23. Please add.

Lines 71ff – You are too brief when saying “However, with regard to these certification schemes, as underlined by Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral [29], the key issues of the independent external audits have been surprisingly overlooked, …” – what are they? And “… with very few exceptions [26,27,30] investigating how some contextual factors are impacting the results of external audits [30–32].” – and what are the findings?

Lines 74ff – Now with regard to the RQ, I am not totally sure if it describes the aim of the article very well. When the “research question arises: How is the influence of contextual factors reflected in the NCs identified by FSC third-party auditors? “ – what do you mean with “reflected” here – should they be considered by the auditors? Because you say then “Starting from the formulated research question, the aim of this paper is to explore the contextual factors influencing the auditing process and outcome,…” which is not exactly the same. I would easily follow the latter – that such factors may have an impact but rather indirectly. Same is true if you use “procedural” or similar.

 

2. Analytical Framework

This section describes nicely the FSC scheme which is needed to understand and the forestry context in Romania. However, the specific analytical approach or framework does not become clear. With “legitimacy and impartiality in the certification process” (Lines 82f) there is very relevant literature and a relevant approach, but the analysis framework needs to be carved out better. Which specific concepts are used, what specific questions to be answered, what is the logic of the evaluation, etc.? What factors will you be looking at? Here also would be the place to specify clearly how the RQ is understood and operationalized. How do these factors then influence the process?

You need to bring the possible criteria for the assessment into a frame, e.g. by relating the criteria such as legitimacy and quality of the process etc. to which stakeholders or overarching research interests. All criteria used later on need to be presented, defined and explained here.

 

3. Methods

The lacking analytical frame carries on to the methods since an analytical model is lacking. Some dependent and independent variables are mentioned but the frame behind needs specification. Still it remains unclear, what are the factors?

I assume they are not those variables such as number of auditors etc. because they don’t appear to be the most relevant or interesting ones.

Also the dependent variables being the number of NCs don’t seem to be the most interesting – it would be interesting to see what kind of NCs…

From what is described here, it is more factors of how the audits are carried out and organized as what you are looking at? I would then not call that contextual factors, or at least I would have expected socio-economic or institutional or other factors. Those might relate to the land owner/company, forest area or forest types, regional economic trends, policies, etc.

Of course, the type of assessment method or the inclusion of foreign members is certainly interesting among those factors used.

 

4. Results

The analysis seems to be conducted properly, but the results could be presented more clearly or easy to read and see the main findings.

Are the types of audits the same as types of assessment? Does not seem right or purposeful.

It would be helpful to clarify better what kind of questions are analysed in which part of the analysis. This also relates to the clear framework of the study which is missing.

 

5. Discussion and conclusions

Overall, the text is very clear and the English very good, however, some issues regarding a good understandable text are observed.

Also in the discussion and conclusions, the results could be presented a bit more clearly. For instance, in Line 292 on the “association between the area and the number of major and total NCs confirming the findings of other studies” the specification of what “area” (amount of audited/size of holding or similar) helps in reading.

A better formulation in Line 321 on “quantitative aspects” and qualitative aspects could be found, for what you actually mean with “aspects” – that seems not the best term. It is rather the analysis method, right? And then, it seems to miss what are the qualitative analysis results (or aspects)??

Line 324 for “laying a lot of emphasis” better “putting”.

Line 327 As said before, “contextual factors “ rather seems to be “organizational” or rather “procedural” factors?

Lines 330ff – “This study contributes to the relatively limited scholarly literature focused on the outcomes and the contextual…” – be more specific on what is the area of research (incl what kind of factors is it really) and then, say how it contributes. This stays somewhat vague.

Line 336 “The methodology has certain limitations: “ – it would be interesting to hear more specific limitations, and with that saying what are research gaps and what would be interesting to add in future research? What would be further interesting factors to look at?

Overall, the discussion gives some interesting aspects but stays very vague and lacks clear interesting findings and their implications. What did we learn and what does it mean – you need to spell out the value of the research in very specific terms.

All this should be framed more systematically – what kind of aspects are we looking at, e.g. quality of the audit, reliability, legitimacy, … these are various aspects to be systematically put into a clear frame. This might include what kind of criteria relate to which stakeholders, incl the forest companies, the auditing firms, FSC, citizens, costumers, NGOs, policy-makers, etc. It is now too mixed and therefore limiting the value of the study.

Author Response

REV. 1 (changes with green on the paper)

We would like to thank the reviewer for the comments and suggestions which have helped us to significantly improve the manuscript. We are grateful for all the time he/she devoted to our manuscript.

We have made important changes in the manuscript as a result of implementing reviewer’s suggestions. All changes are given in green in the improved version of the manuscript.

General comments:

General comment 1. This is a relevant and interesting article on certification, however, needs some improvement in terms of clear RQ and analytical frame.

Answer. We would like to thank the reviewer for the appreciation. His/her comments and suggestions regarding the RQ and analytical frame have been implemented as described in the answers to the comments below (see especially answers to specific comments 4, 5 and 7)

 

GC 2. The term “contextual factors” seems misleading and should be replace by “procedural” or similar.

Answer: Thank you for this observation and for the suggestion. Indeed, the term contextual is too general. As suggested, we have replaced it with procedural in all the manuscript.

 

GC 3. A clear analytical frame is lacking but needed for clarity of results. This would improve the article from the beginning through all sections.

Answer. We are grateful for your analysis regarding the analytical frame and especially the RQ. We have revised the RQ, and tried to clarify the analytical frame, as it can be seen in the answers to comments below (see especially answers to specific comments 4, 5 and 7).

 

GC 4. The text is otherwise very clear and well understandable, but the clearer frame would make the results and findings even better understandable.

Answer. Thank you for this appreciation and the realistic observation. We have made the indicated changes, especially for better describing the factors/variables/analysis. We hope the reviewer will share with us the believe that the changes have really improved the manuscript.

 

GC 5. Finally, the relevance of the research would be improved by a more systematic discussion of the findings.

Answer. Thank you for this remark. We have restructured the last section separating a special section for conclusions and pointing out in a clear way the findings of the research (see especially answers to specific comments 13, 17, and 19)

 

GC 6. We need to be aware of certification being currently a very sensitive issue. Therefore, a very clear presentation of questions and findings is crucial for the quality of the research.

Answer. Thank you for the remark. Indeed, the suggestions we received from the reviewer were very helpful. We have implemented the suggestions, regarding a clearer presentation of questions and findings, especially in the Results, Discussions and Conclusions sections (see especially answers to specific comments 10, 12, 13 and 19).

 

Specific comments:

1. Introduction

Specific comment 1: Is clearly written, well grounded in literature and well structured. A few remarks:

Lines 43ff – FSC is presented well, and some remarks on ISO, but a few remarks on PEFC seem lacking but should be included, just for being comprehensive.

Answer. Thank you for your suggestion. It was a regrettable omission not to mention PEFC in the Introduction section. We have added remarks on PEFC in the second paragraph of the section, (lines 48 – 54 in the improved version of the manuscript).

 

SC 2: Lines 56f – saying “the scientific literature giving interesting insights on the type of NCs related to the FSC principles [20–23]” it would be interesting to read the most important ones. You say something in the next sentence but not so specific on what we learn from refs 20–23. Please add.

Answer. Thank you for this suggestion. We have added the following text (lines 64-73 in the improved version of the manuscript):

Rafael et al. [23] explored the main challenges faced by companies from Brasil in the FSC certification process, analyzing the quantity, spatial distribution, non-compliant principles, potential triggers and thematic areas of non-conformities. In Mexic, Blackman et al. [20] found that most of the corrective action requests addressed minor procedural issues and focused social, economic and legal issues, not on-the-ground environmental ones. A deep procedural analysis was performed by Hermundanado et al. in Indonesia [21]: it revealed that the clear majority of NCs issued to FSC-certified units were minor and required only procedural changes. Regarding the requirements of standards, Piketty and Drigo [22] analyzed the objectivity of indicators and showed that some indicators were difficult to check through an audit procedure.

 

SC 3. Lines 71ff – You are too brief when saying “However, with regard to these certification schemes, as underlined by Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral [29], the key issues of the independent external audits have been surprisingly overlooked, …” – what are they? And “… with very few exceptions [26,27,30] investigating how some contextual factors are impacting the results of external audits [30–32].” – and what are the findings?

Answer. We appreciate this comment and the associated suggestion. We have added the following text in the Introduction section (lines 87-102 in the improved version of the manuscript):

However, with regard to these certification schemes, as underlined by Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral [29], the key issues (i.e., the misconceptions of the certification and auditing practices for sustainability) of the independent external audits have been surprisingly overlooked, with very few exceptions [e.g., 26,27,30]. The findings of these works pointed out a set of procedural factors which impact on the results of external audits. In their empirical work carried out in Canada, based on interviewing ISO 14001 auditors, Heras-Saizarbitoria et al. [26] underlined the importance of some procedural factors such as the duration of the audit, the information supplied by organizations and the characteristics and the role of the auditor. Similarly, Biazzo [30] highlighted the importance of the role adopted by auditors in the case of the Italian companies. In the work by Sampaio et al. [27] developed in Portugal and based on the analysis of ISO 9001 audit reports, factors such as the number and type of the non-conformities were found relevant as pointed out also by Karapetrovic and Willborn [31] in their seminal theoretical paper about the effectiveness of audit systems for quality assurance. Finally, based on their empirical work carried out in Italy, Chiarini and Vagnoni [32] identified a set of key factors for an audit, such as auditors’ skills, the use of standardized checklists and the type of assessment (e.g., scheduled or not).

 

SC 4. Lines 74ff – Now with regard to the RQ, I am not totally sure if it describes the aim of the article very well. When the “research question arises: How is the influence of contextual factors reflected in the NCs identified by FSC third-party auditors? “ – what do you mean with “reflected” here – should they be considered by the auditors? Because you say then “Starting from the formulated research question, the aim of this paper is to explore the contextual factors influencing the auditing process and outcome,…” which is not exactly the same. I would easily follow the latter – that such factors may have an impact but rather indirectly. Same is true if you use “procedural” or similar.

Answer. Thank you for this comment that helped us better formulate the RQ. We agree that the way the RQ was formulated didn’t really describes the purpose of the research. We have revised and reformulated the RQ, also using the term procedural instead of contextual. The text (lines 103-105 in the improved version of the manuscript) is the following:

Considering the findings of the literature focused on FSC certification and the literature focused on other certification schemes the following research question arises: Do procedural factors influence the characteristics of NCs identified by FSC third-party audits?

 

1. Analytical Framework

SC 5. This section describes nicely the FSC scheme which is needed to understand and the forestry context in Romania. However, the specific analytical approach or framework does not become clear. With “legitimacy and impartiality in the certification process” (Lines 82f) there is very relevant literature and a relevant approach, but the analysis framework needs to be carved out better.

You need to bring the possible criteria for the assessment into a frame, e.g. by relating the criteria such as legitimacy and quality of the process etc. to which stakeholders or overarching research interests. All criteria used later on need to be presented, defined and explained here.

Answer. We thank the reviewer for his/her pertinent observations. It is true, a section dedicated to the analytical framework would need a more in deep analysis. Due to the limitations of words and article pattern for forest specific certification schemes, and due to having only one-week for revisions, we have cut this type of analysis short. However, in the context of the revised RQ, the aim of the research is clearer, leaving issues like legitimacy or impartiality somehow besides the streamline of the research. Consequently, we have shortened the first paragraph of the section and tried to link it better to the real aim of the section – description of the FSC scheme procedures and FSC Romanian context. The text (lines 112-118 in the improved version of the manuscript) is the following:

The certification process quality assurance is one of the main concerns of the certification schemes. They are aiming at standardizing the auditing procedures in order to reduce the possible influence of procedural factors and enhance the legitimacy and impartiality in the certification process [33-36]. Possible subjective aspects of verification like auditing periods or auditing teams’ features are subject of procedural standardization [37–40]. The forest certification schemes are no exception: the quality assurance process recognizes that clear and objective procedures, among other factors, are important for achieving and assuring quality.

For improved clarity, the section has been renamed (the new name in the improved version of the manuscript is Background of FSC auditing process and Romanian forest certification context) and aims at presenting: 1) the FSC auditing procedures - details and notions meant to make the manuscript more readable and understandable and 2) Romanian certification context – why FSC is important and relevant as research area in Romania.

 

SC 6. Which specific concepts are used, what specific questions to be answered, what is the logic of the evaluation, etc.? What factors will you be looking at? Here also would be the place to specify clearly how the RQ is understood and operationalized. How do these factors then influence the process?

Answer. Thank for this comment and suggested questions to be answered, as it allowed us to better describe the factors we focused in the research. However, we haven’t address this suggestion in section 2 for the reasons indicated above. Instead, we have revised the Methods section by including Table 1 (see answer to SC. 7). By clearly describing the variables, table 1 is providing answers to all the questions raised by the reviewer.

 

1. Methods

SC 7. The lacking analytical frame carries on to the methods since an analytical model is lacking. Some dependent and independent variables are mentioned but the frame behind needs specification. Still it remains unclear, what are the factors? I assume they are not those variables such as number of auditors etc. because they don’t appear to be the most relevant or interesting ones. Also the dependent variables being the number of NCs don’t seem to be the most interesting – it would be interesting to see what kind of NCs…

 

Answer. We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her criticism, but also for the suggestions. To better indicate the factors and variables used in the analysis, as well as to better present the research methodological frame, we have included Table 1 line 204 in the improved version of the manuscript). In the table, the dependent and independent variables are explained. These variables are complementary and oriented towards the aim of the research. The NCs are classified depending on the type (minor or major), the method of detection (document verification, field checks and interviews) and the corresponding principle of the standard (1 to 9). The minor and major NCs have been analyzed in the regression and correlation analysis, and the detection method and the corresponding principle in the correlation analysis. Other regressions have not been included because their results have already been mirrored in the correlation analysis.

 

SC 8. From what is described here, it is more factors of how the audits are carried out and organized as what you are looking at? I would then not call that contextual factors, or at least I would have expected socio-economic or institutional or other factors. Those might relate to the land owner/company, forest area or forest types, regional economic trends, policies, etc.

Answer. The observation is very valuable. This is once again pointing out on the very good suggestion of using the term procedural instead of contextual. We didn’t address factors like the ones mentioned by the reviewer, but clearly, they can be potential aspects to be analyzed in future avenues.

 

SC 9. Of course, the type of assessment method or the inclusion of foreign members is certainly interesting among those factors used.

Answer. Thank you for this remark. Indeed, foreign members in the auditing team is one of the most interesting factors used in the analysis.

 

1. Results

SC 10. The analysis seems to be conducted properly, but the results could be presented more clearly or easy to read and see the main findings.

Answer. Thank you for the observation. We have tried to improve the presentation in order to clarify the section and help the reader to see the main findings. The changes can be found in the improved version of the manuscript, lines 244, 253, 259 - 260, 286, 291-295. See also the answer to SC 12.

 

SC 11. Are the types of audits the same as types of assessment? Does not seem right or purposeful.

Answer. Thank you for this pertinent observation. Yes, type of audit is the same with type of assessment. For more clarity, the confusion has been removed and we have used only type of assessment in the improved version of the manuscript.

 

SC 12. It would be helpful to clarify better what kind of questions are analyzed in which part of the analysis. This also relates to the clear framework of the study which is missing.

Answer. Thank you for this suggestion. Generally, the results are oriented towards answering the following research question that is given in the introduction of the article (in the improved version of the manuscript): Do procedural factors influence the characteristics of NCs identified by FSC third-party audits? With this aim, three complementary methods have been used to test this question and the results are presented in the results section. By introducing some clarifications in the text, we have tried to indicate, in a more accessible way for the readers, what are the procedural factors influencing what characteristics of the NCs. The following text fragments have been added:

• Line 244 - The type of assessment is influencing the grade of NCs as well as the method of detection.
• Line 253 - Our results pointed out that the type of assessment also influence the standard reference.
• Lines 259 – 260 - ……this factor having a clearer influence on the number and type of NCs.
• Lines 286 - The type of assessment is influencing the number and type of NCs and the standard reference.
• Lines 291-295 - The auditing period as well as the number of auditors in the auditing teams have significant influence on the grade of resulted NCs as well as on the standard reference (Principles). The number of NCs identified by document verification is strongly correlated with the number of auditing days. With bigger audit teams, more NCs are detected; specifically, more minor NCs and NCs related to Principles 2, 4, 5, and 6.

1. Discussion and conclusions

SC 13. Overall, the text is very clear and the English very good, however, some issues regarding a good understandable text are observed.

Also in the discussion and conclusions, the results could be presented a bit more clearly. For instance, in Line 292 on the “association between the area and the number of major and total NCs confirming the findings of other studies” the specification of what “area” (amount of audited/size of holding or similar) helps in reading.

Answer. Thank you for this comment. Indeed, the text isn’t clear enough. Area represents the area under the scope of certification (certified area). We have included the term certified in order to better explain what we meant. In the improved version of the manuscript, the sentence is a s follows:

The regression and correlation analysis support the association between the certified area and the number of major and total NCs confirming the findings of other studies.

Moreover, we have checked the whole section and made the same change in all cases when the term area was not sufficiently clear.

In order to present the results clearer. We have also separated the discussions from the conclusions (as editor ask) and emphasize the answer to the RQ (see lines 374-381 in the improved version of the manuscript).

 

SC 14. A better formulation in Line 321 on “quantitative aspects” and qualitative aspects could be found, for what you actually mean with “aspects” – that seems not the best term. It is rather the analysis method, right? And then, it seems to miss what are the qualitative analysis results (or aspects)??

Answer. Thank you for your observation. After careful analysis, we concluded that there is no need to make any comments regarding qualitative and/or quantitative analysis. Therefore, the indicated sentence has been removed. This study is only quantitative, no analysis on description of NCs was performed.

 

SC 15. Line 324 for “laying a lot of emphasis” better “putting”.

Answer. Thank you for the suggestion. We have replaced laying with putting.

 

SC 16. Line 327 As said before, “contextual factors “ rather seems to be “organizational” or rather “procedural” factors?

Answer. We agree with the reviewer. We have changed contextual term with procedural in all the manuscript.

 

SC 17. Lines 330ff – “This study contributes to the relatively limited scholarly literature focused on the outcomes and the contextual…” – be more specific on what is the area of research (incl what kind of factors is it really) and then, say how it contributes. This stays somewhat vague.

Answer. Thank you for your remark. Our research use an innovative approach: analyzing the procedural factors and results of audit (NCs). In the field of forest certification research, this represents the first study that gives empirical evidence regarding the influence of certain procedural factors (like the type of assessment, the auditing period or the features of the auditing teams) on the auditing process outcomes: number and grade of non-conformities, standard references or methods of NCs. All the studies in forest certification field analyses only the NCs. In order to be more specific in pointing out the contribution of the research, we have included the following text in the conclusion section (lines 379-382):

Our research offers empirical evidence that certain procedural factors like the type of assessment, the auditing period or the features of the auditing teams have a significant influence on the auditing process outcomes: number and grade of non-conformities, standard references or methods of NCs detection.

 

SC 18. Line 336 “The methodology has certain limitations: “ – it would be interesting to hear more specific limitations, and with that saying what are research gaps and what would be interesting to add in future research? What would be further interesting factors to look at?

Answer: Thank you for this suggestion. We have included in the paragraph describing the limitations of the study more specific limitations. We have also described what future research directions can be identifies (what socio-economic or institutional factors can be focused in the future). The paragraph (in black, blue and green in the improved version of the manuscript, lines 360-370) is the following:

The methodology has certain limitations: the research presented in this paper only analyzed the Romanian case. Also, the analysis is based only on the information recorded in public official FSC assessment records including only a few procedural factors, therefore only these factors were included in the analysis: type of assessment, auditing days, audit team members, etc. With that. new lines of research can be thus identified – addressing also socio-economic or institutional contextual factors like economic trends, policies land ownership, forest type, logging volume or number of employees. It is obvious that every assessment has numerous particularities that depend on the decision power of the auditing team. The audits of forest certification schemes are based on samples: some findings will not be traced by auditors. Regarding the NCs, no analysis on description (or categories) was performed since the focus was only on procedural aspects. Another limitation can be identified in the reduced number of reports for ASI-witnessed assessments; therefore, the conclusions regarding the influence of the ASI witness presence on the number of NCs are of limited relevance.

 

SC 19. Overall, the discussion gives some interesting aspects but stays very vague and lacks clear interesting findings and their implications. What did we learn and what does it mean – you need to spell out the value of the research in very specific terms.

All this should be framed more systematically – what kind of aspects are we looking at, e.g. quality of the audit, reliability, legitimacy, … these are various aspects to be systematically put into a clear frame. This might include what kind of criteria relate to which stakeholders, incl the forest companies, the auditing firms, FSC, citizens, costumers, NGOs, policy-makers, etc. It is now too mixed and therefore limiting the value of the study.

Answer. We would like to thank the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions. We do believe that by including clear descriptions of the factors and variables that were focused by the study, as well as including clearer results presentation (see Table 1 and answers to specific comments 4, 5, 7, 11 and 12) the paper is much more readable and it has gained a more systematic frame.

Moreover, aiming at eliminating vague discussions and conclusions and giving the study its true value, we decided to split section 5 Discussion and conclusions into two distinct sections, one including the discussions, and the other trying to clearer mention the findings and their implications. In this way, the improved version of the manuscript is now less mixed and the contributions of the study are clearer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The FSC certification process is one of the key topics of the modern forest management and forest production agenda throughout the world. Romania represents a good case study, from this perspective, so the significance of the proposed manuscript is high.

The authors employ the regression modelling techniques to provide an interesting analysis of factors that influence the non-conformities that are revealed during the audit of the FSC compliance. My major concerns touch the following issues that need to be addressed.

1. The abstract is too short for a paper in a good international journal. Please follow the rules of the Forests and extend this text to at least 200 words.

2. It is worth considering a simplification of title. Don't you think these first words (Shedding light) are not necessary and look as "marketing technique"? Doubling of the “FSC certification” seems to be redundant, as well. My suggestion is the following formulation of title: “Contextual factors influencing the forest certification auditing process: the case of Romania”.

3. The regression models lack of a set of control variables that would guarantee the absence of systematic bias in the estimates. The authors only accounts for specific variables concerning the audit process, but not the characteristics of the general background, such as forest area, logging volume, number of employees and so on. If it is not possible to include some extra variables, this issue need to be thoroughly described. In this case, the significance of the suggested models is quite low.

Author Response

REV.2 (changes with blue on the paper)

 

We would like to thank the reviewer for the observations, comments and suggestions. We hope we have improved the manuscript and solve the pointed issues. We are grateful for all the time he/her devoted to our work.

 

Comment 1. The FSC certification process is one of the key topics of the modern forest management and forest production agenda throughout the world. Romania represents a good case study, from this perspective, so the significance of the proposed manuscript is high.

The authors employ the regression modelling techniques to provide an interesting analysis of factors that influence the non-conformities that are revealed during the audit of the FSC compliance. My major concerns touch the following issues that need to be addressed.

Answer: Thank you for the appreciation as well as for indicating the issues that needed to be addressed. We hope that the reviewer will see our solutions as being appropriate.

 

Comment 2. The abstract is too short for a paper in a good international journal. Please follow the rules of the Forests and extend this text to at least 200 words.

Answer: Thank you for this pertinent observation and the associated suggestion. As suggested, the abstract has been revised – changes are given in blue in the improved version of the manuscript (lines 29 - 35).

 

Comment 3. It is worth considering a simplification of title. Don't you think these first words (Shedding light) are not necessary and look as "marketing technique"? Doubling of the “FSC certification” seems to be redundant, as well. My suggestion is the following formulation of title: “Contextual factors influencing the forest certification auditing process: the case of Romania”.

Answer: Thank you for this suggestion. Indeed, the initial formulation of the title didn’t really mirror the content of the paper. We have changed the title based on the suggestion of the reviewer and taking into consideration also the empirical feature of the research as well as the fact that we decide to replace the term contextual with procedural, in the revising process. The new title of the paper is Procedural factors influencing forest certification audits: an empirical study in Romania”. The change is given in blue in the improved version of the manuscript.

 

Comment 4. The regression models lack of a set of control variables that would guarantee the absence of systematic bias in the estimates. The authors only accounts for specific variables concerning the audit process, but not the characteristics of the general background, such as forest area, logging volume, number of employees and so on. If it is not possible to include some extra variables, this issue need to be thoroughly described. In this case, the significance of the suggested models is quite low.

Answer. Thank you for the comment – it allows us to better explain why we consider that our results are sound. We have included these explanations in the improved version of the manuscript, lines 306-309) as follows:

The values of R² are more than acceptable considering the complexity of the study, the number of independent variables in each regression, the significance of the β coefficients in the relevant regressions and the number of cases used in the analysis. (Faul et al., 2009). In the first step of the regression, for the number of minor NCs, the year of certification for audited entities explains 54.4% of the variance, but in the second step, it is excluded from the regression because of the introduction of the variables: main assessment and number of auditing days. This step discards a potential bias caused by these variables.

Regarding the variables concerning the audit process, we have included Table 1 in the Methods section aiming to better explain the variables that were extracted from audit public reports. In this case, no other variables/ data were available. Also, the authors considered (in this research) only procedural factors that can affect the results of audits. Of course, the qualitative description of NCs can show the level of performance of companies, but the focus was on relation between procedural factors and outcomes-NCs. Data availability, as well as the time allowed for revising the article didn’t allow including other factors, like those suggested by the reviewer in the research.

However, we are aware of the identified limitation and we thank for the suggestion to describe this issue – it allows us to better underline the limitations of the research. In this sense, we have revised the paragraph describing the limitations of the study including the suggestion as a limitation of the analysis. (in blue and green in the improved version of the manuscript. lines 362-369):

Also, the analysis is based only on the information recorded in public official FSC assessment records including only a few procedural factors, therefore only these factors were included in the analysis: type of assessment, auditing days, audit team members, etc. With that, new lines of research can be identified – addressing also socio-economic or institutional contextual factors like economic trends, policies land ownership, forest type, logging volume or number of employees. It is obvious that every assessment has numerous particularities that depend on the decision power of the auditing team. The audits of forest certification schemes are based on samples: some findings will not be traced by auditors. Regarding the NCs, no analysis on description (or categories) was performed since the focus was only on procedural aspects.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I am satisfied with a substantial surplus that have been added my the authors after the first reviewing tour.

Author Response

Dear editor,

Thank you again for looking over our manuscript. We are grateful for the time you dedicated to our manuscript.

We have tried to better address the indicated issues pointed out by the reviewer 1. All changes are marked using Track changes mode.

Regarding the comment on the necessity to add some more remarks on PEFC, we have made some changes in the Introduction section by adding/changing some relevant citations (no. 13-17) and by pointing out some remarks in the following text (the end of the second paragraph of the Introduction section, in the improved version of the manuscript):

The FSC and PEFC certification is achieved through an auditing process carried out by an independent accredited certification body, with forest management conformity assessed against the Standard [1,12,13]: FSC has one set of principles and criteria defined by FSC-International or defined by regional working groups coordinated by national chapters [14]; PEFC, on the other hand, is based on the standards developed by each country, evaluated by PEFC International under certain requirements [15].

 

The third paragraph of the Introduction section has been also revised as follows:

The specific requirements of FSC and PEFC standards aim to continuously improve forest management and involve all relevant stakeholders. These schemes focus on compliance with national and international legislation or good practices [16], clarification of ownership issues, development of forest management plans aimed at preserving and enhancing conservation attributes, increasing safety of forest specific activities, ensuring optimal work conditions and transparency. Regarding benefits, certified entities mainly consider forest certification as a tool for improving external company image, promoting sustainable utilisation of forest resources, and improving forest management practices [17].

 

Regarding the comment on the analytical framework, we have added a new paragraph at the end of the Introduction section. This new paragraph describes the sections of the paper in conjunction with the framework of the research.

 

This paper was structured in six sections, including this introduction. The following section shows present the FSC procedures and Romanian context, followed by methodology (section 3). The fourth section presents the results of the analysis and its most relevant descriptive and inferential statistics. Section 5 discusses the findings and Section 6 finally draws concluding remarks and highlights future avenues of research.

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