Sustainable Development Model of Performance of Woodworking Enterprises in the Czech Republic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript intends to present an interesting topic, but it lacks to present it in a more attractive manner. Please consider the following:

• Review and extend the introduction/literature review part. There are many statements that need to be supported by references, for example see lines 35-37 about the biggest challenge
• avoid saying „hereinafter referred to as the ...” Simply write in parentheses the acronym.
• at the end of Introduction I expect to find a phrase explaining the aim of the paper.
• subtitle 2.1 is not needed , is repeating the title (and it is not proper to say material of the article, it is the material and method used for the research)
• Lines 85-88 – why explaining the introductory part under this section?
• Please consider to create a figure in section 2 (material and method) explaining the steps involved. The manner used at this point is difficult to understand. In fact, one cannot follow what exactly was done, how, with what data, what indicators are calculated etc. Consider that the readers are expecting to read the results following the steps presented in the methodology. Revise also the results section to be in accordance with the steps.
• What is the timeframe for the secondary data and for primary data?
• Is there available online the output report of the project mentioned in lines 107-108? Or at least a link to the project webpage. In fact, it is mandatory to provide the opportunity to the reader to read more about you present. For example, in line 147 it is said „in previous publications by the authors” but to reference to any is made...
• All figure should be translated in English
• Section 3.2 – I missing some connection between the text and the figure 4 & 5 – I would appreciate an easier explanation, such that other researchers can in fact use the models.
• And also I do not consider it necessary to keep remind „authors of this article”.
• What are the limitations of the study?

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 comments – 1st

Firstly we would like to really thank the reviewer for the comments. The comment was really useful and absolutely to the point. We hope that we followed all the corrections needed and that the article is now better than before the review.

1) Review and extend the introduction/literature review part. There are many statements that need to be supported by references, for example see lines 35-37 about the biggest challenge.

Response 1: Accepted.  The text has been reworked following the recommendation of the Reviewer.

2) avoid saying „hereinafter referred to as the ...” Simply write in parentheses the acronym.

Response 2: Accepted.  The text has been reworked following the recommendation of the Reviewer.

3) at the end of the Introduction I expect to find a phrase explaining the aim of the paper.

Response 3: Accepted.  The text has been reworked following the recommendation of the Reviewer.

4) subtitle 2.1 is not needed, is repeating the title (and it is not proper to say the material of the article, it is the material and method used for the research).

Response 4: Accepted.  The text has been reworked following the recommendation of Reviewer

5) Lines 85-88 – why explaining the introductory part under this section?

Response 5: Accepted.  The text has been reworked following the recommendation of the Reviewer. Part of the text has been deleted.

6) Please consider to create a figure in section 2 (material and method) explaining the steps involved. The manner used at this point is difficult to understand. In fact, one cannot follow what exactly was done, how, with what data, what indicators are calculated etc. Consider that the readers are expecting to read the results following the steps presented in the methodology. Revise also the results section to be in accordance with the steps.

Response 6: Partially accepted. We partially agree with this comment, but it is not easy to comply with it, it would mean reworking the whole structure of the article. In some parts, we tried to supplement the methodology and adjust some of the content. The article is a connection of several studies and projects of the team of authors and it is not possible to describe the methodology in more detail, as the system would identify the agreement between other articles. In the article, we tried to connect the outputs of the projects and point out the identified synergies. In this case, this is the only fundamental comment we received from our opponents and we cannot comply with it in full. We firmly believe that this does not in any way reduce the quality of the article to such a level that it does not offer quality scientific facts.

7) What is the timeframe for the secondary data and for primary data?

Response 7: All secondary data are validated for the same period for the years 2016-2019. At the same time all the mentioned projects, which form the source of primary data, took place in 2016-2020. The course of analyzes from projects is described in the methodology and the secondary data have a time interface given in the text, tables, figures.

All used secondary sources of the data are mentioned in L93-97, primary data are used in the analytical part of the results, where it is always stated that it is data from the projects of the authors of the article.

8) Is there available online the output report of the project mentioned in lines 107-108? Or at least a link to the project webpage. In fact, it is mandatory to provide the opportunity to the reader to read more about you present. For example, in line 147 it is said „in previous publications by the authors” but to reference to any is made.

Response 8: Accepted.  A data-related resource has been added directly to the article.

A direct link to the final report on the project, which we completed only this year, has been added to the text. Almost the entire publishing activity mentioned in the article is linked to this project. We tried to avoid self-citations, as there are 34 publications related to the outputs of the project. Through this web address, you can get all the information about the project, outputs, methodology, and also the publications that are mentioned in the article.

Link: https://starfos.tacr.cz/cs/project/QK1820358#project-results

9) All figure should be translated in English

Response 9: Accepted. The text has been reworked following the recommendation of the Reviewer. There were several untranslated words in the text, for which we apologize, the translation of the article was solved in the form of a translation service

10) Section 3.2 – I missing some connection between the text and the figure 4 & 5 – I would appreciate an easier explanation, such that other researchers can in fact use the models.

 

Response 10: The models themselves represent visualized proposals of preferential areas on which the analytical part of the article focused. Their use is rather of an application nature at the enterprise level and is intended to streamline strategic planning and decision-making. We agree that it is not easy for the reader to find context, but the text from analysis in results refers to them and the context is mentioned.

 

11) And also I do not consider it necessary to keep remind „authors of this article”.

 

Response 11: Accepted.  The text has been reworked following the recommendation of the Reviewer.

 

12) What are the limitations of the study?

Response 12: Based on the current state of knowledge, there is no significant barrier or critical assumption preventing the realization of the study's goals. A critical element of the study is the availability and validity of information on wood sources and their structure. Methodologically, it is solved by back control based on the analysis of wood consumption in primary processing. An obstacle to the implementation of the results of this study is the absence of a national strategy for the transformation of industries from primary and secondary wood processing. The calamity made it necessary to harvest wood quickly, but the consequences of low added value at such a large volume will be felt for decades to come. Unless a transformation is undertaken in the short term for many companies in the forestry and timber industry, this will have fatal consequences. Application practice in the coming years will prove whether the identified weaknesses, threats, and opportunities mentioned in the article were significant and will also prove their consequences in the event that the timber market fails to be modified.

Note on editing:

In this way, we would like to mention that more fundamental changes to the article are made through "track changes" in text, the remaining adjustments of a formal or technocratic nature were incorporated directly into the text from both opponents.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presents the results of quite a topical study of improving the sustainability of forest sector enterprises in the Czech Republic. The main idea is to build a model that could describe what specific products should be developed under various scenarios.

The content of work made by authors is rich, but is not free of some major shortcomings:

• the language of text should be carefully revisited and justified;
• technical details of calculations made by authors is not properly revealed; what kinds of equations (mathematical models) are used to produce the corresponding estimates? Although the authors do not extend the existing models, some details of techniques used is badly needed;
• some graphs, tables and fragments of text look redundant and could get optimized (see below);
• literature review is focused on the region and almost ignores purely academic titles; it needs to be sufficiently extended (see suggested examples of papers below—it's just to get started).

Some minor and technical notes that also need some attention:

• Keywords seem to be too vague and general. The content of paper is much more specific, which should be mentioned in keywords.
• Table 1. The content of variable (material utlisation of raw wood for various manufacturing) is unclear. How it was calculated? Is this the average of different observations?
• Table 2. Term "development" is not used appropriately in this case. Do you mean "dynamics" or some synonym? Could you replace this table with a diagram, which is more illustrative in this case?
• Table 5. Table seems to be redundant. Same information could be represented in the text.
• Figure 2. Graph representation is poor. Some czech labels are presetned. Colors are ugly.
• Figure 4. The information behind the graph is way too simplistic to take a third of a page in a graph. Basically, the idea is to show six figures, so a rethinking of this illustration is needed. Enriching of graph content is welcome.
• L13. Double mentioning “represent” verb on the only line.
• L718—721 are more appropriate in the introduction rather than in conclusions.

Some examples of suggested literature:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102286

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2013.11.009

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2006.03.002

Author Response

As your comments also required graphic adjustments, we enclose the answers and the incorporation of the comments in a separate document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript was revised. However, authors have not complied all suggestions as expected. The recommendation made regarding a better explanation of the methodological steps was to help for a better visibility of the research after publishing. 

On the other hand, I do expect to see the limitations of the study mentioned at the end of the paper as it is custom to be done.

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your inspiring comments, which have certainly contributed to improving the quality of the contribution for scientific and applied practice. A separate section on possible limitations of the study has been added at the end of the article. Additional sources of foreign studies have been added to the article.
Once again, we would like to apologize for not incorporating all of your comments, and we will take these suggestions into account when creating the article methodology for further publication.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have made a substantial revision of the original manuscript and carefully responded to my comments. Generally, I am satisfied with the changes made to the text.

However, it would be fruitful to further extend the list of literature. I recommend to add 5—10 more sources.

Author Response

Thank you for your inspiring comments, which have certainly contributed to improving the quality of the contribution for scientific and applied practice. A separate section on possible limitations of the study has been added at the end of the article. Additional sources of foreign studies have been added to the article.