Effects of Sustainability and Technology Orientations on Firm Growth: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Given the environmental pressures emanating from fast-growing economies such as China, empirical studies of sustainable growth regarding these regions of the world are particularly valuable. I enjoyed reading this paper and find it a timely contribution to the literature as well as lively debates about industrial policy. Covering a technological and a sustainability orientation adds to the attractiveness of the paper. Below I would like to raise some issues requiring attention. Hope my comments will help you strengthen this research.
It seems relative obvious that technology orientation will help firm to grow. I think you need to strengthen and elaborate on the reasons for comparing technology and sustainability orientation in your research design. Technology and sustainability orientations could be more clearly defined. The role of institutional environment to the relationship between technology orientation and firm growth should be further developed, rather than proposing competing hypotheses H3a and H3b. You claimed that the sample includes firms occupying the champion position in their industry. Is there any evidence for their market position in your sample selection?Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Article
Effects of sustainability and technology orientations on firm growth: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing
This article addresses the relationships between technology orientation, sustainability orientation and firm growth considering institutional and industrial characteristics of manufacturing industry in the context of the 12th five-year plan of China.
The paper tackles an interesting topic, is well-written, extensively investigates the relevant literature, applies sound methods of investigation and capitalise on the available data. Still, there are some necessary minor revisions, as follows.
On page 1, the authors state “literatures on the relationship between corporate sustainability and corporate financial performance have been inconsistent [3], which is found to be positive [4], negative [5], U-shaped [6], inverted U-shaped [7] or insignificant [8].” The differences in the results found in the literature regarding the corporate sustainability - corporate financial performance link might be easily explained by factors such as specific indicators used to measure sustainability and financial performance, differences in the time span or sector of activity considered in the analysis. It does not necessarily mean that literature is inconsistent, as the authors argue, simply the context might be different. Also, it is not clear for me the logic behind the next sentence on the same page: “Therefore, it indicates that firms faces a trade-off between sustainability development and financial performance, and it remains to be seen whether the relationship between sustainability development and financial performance is perpetual.” The study uses a three-year time lag when considering the roles that sustainability orientation and technology orientation might play on firm growth. Please explain the option for three years against other possible time lags. Industry growth (IG) is insignificant for firm growth in all model specifications, which is counter-intuitive, given that the sample includes the firms that are industry leaders. IG becomes nevertheless significant in interaction with Sustainability orientation (SO). Similarly, the variable Institution is significant only in interaction with Technology orientation (TO). Authors should consider the potential factors that can explain these changes in statistical significance of the initial regressors. Please explain more clearly Figures 1 and 2.
More attention should be paid to basic grammar rules, for instance the subject-verb agreement (a singular subject takes a singular verb, whereas a plural subject takes a plural verb). Examples of such disagreement in the paper (with suggested corrections in red): “firms faces”, “However, previous studies from cognitive view analyzing the effects of different content and structure of managerial cognition on sustainability is are still lacking”, “literatures suggests”, „this study further analyzes”, etc.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
