The Relationship between CEO Governance and Social Responsibility of Service Firms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research results presented in the paper are very interesting. They show the influence of senior management on the implementation of solutions based on CSR. Research contained in the article can be considered innovative. However, the conclusions should indicate whether the research results can be generalized to companies from other countries. It seems to be also important to answer the question: Whether the specifics of the market conditions of Korea have or may have an impact on the obtained research results.

Author Response

Thank you for your precious comments. According to your comment that "the conclusions should indicate whether the research results can be generalized to companies from other countries", we have indicated that we analyzed service firms in Korea; as such, this study has limitations in generalization to publicly traded firms in Korea as a whole or to firms in other countries in the conclusion section on Page 13. We have indicated these limits in our conclusion section. In addition, based on the importance to answering the question--"whether the specifics of the market conditions of Korea have or may have an impact on the obtained research results", we have added some sentences regarding our research context on Pages 6 and 7 as follows:

"Korea provides an ideal context in which we may empirically test the hypotheses for the following reasons. First, Korea represents a semi-developed country and thereby may be effectively contrasted to an emerging country with relatively poor functional institutions or a developed country with well-established institutions in terms of capital, labor, and information. Second, in the Korean economy, service firms have substantially driven the economic growth." 

Again, we appreciate you for your constructive comments.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presents the problem of "The Relationship between CEO Dominance and Corporate Social Responsibility of Service Corporations". This is not complicated, clearly pointed scientific problem but it may be seen as important because the matter of corporate social responsibility of enterprises (organizations) is more and more important - especially at the sustainable development theory background. 

The whole article is planed well, the article consists of parts which results of each other. The methodology is presented and provided correctly. It is worth to point that Authors have showed their diligence in writing the paper what can be found in abbreviations presented in each first using of scientific term. I also found better chosen literature as the research background. The minus of the literature is focusing at national literature and the "Tax Account. Res" mainly. It could be improved for higher level of internationalization of the scientific discussion.

Because the article undertakes the matter of CEO dominance it may be interested for that (CEO) target group of readers too.

There should be little supplement in the technical section such as Author Contributions, Funding, Acknowledgments and Conflicts of Interest which should be corrected (supplemented) by Authors. However this part has no influence at scientific quality of the presented paper.    

 

  

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your constructive comments. Focusing on national literature and the “Tax Account. Res” and a question of applicability for higher level of internationalization of scientific discussion, have indicated that we analyzed service firms in Korea; as such, this study has limitations in generalization to publicly traded firms in Korea as a whole or to firms in other countries in the conclusion section on Page 13. We have indicated these limits in our conclusion section. In addition, based on the importance to answering the question--"whether the specifics of the market conditions of Korea have or may have an impact on the obtained research results", we have added some sentences regarding our research context on Pages 6 and 7 as follows:

"Korea provides an ideal context in which we may empirically test the hypotheses for the following reasons. First, Korea represents a semi-developed country and thereby may be effectively contrasted to an emerging country with relatively poor functional institutions or a developed country with well-established institutions in terms of capital, labor, and information. Second, in the Korean economy, service firms have substantially driven the economic growth."

Again, we appreciate you for your precious comments that enable us to develop this article.

Reviewer 3 Report

 

The Relationship between CEO Dominance and  Corporate Social Responsibility of Service Corporations

 

 

In this paper the author(s) study the relationship between CEO dominance and CSR in service corporations. To do so they rely on a sample made of 260 observations was collected from 2013 to 2015 and find support of a positive relationship.

 

First of all I would like to congratulate the author(s) for a well-written paper, dealing with an interesting topic. Also, the literature review seems comprehensive and includes recent contributions of relevance to the field. I have some suggestions that I hope the authors find useful:

 

In the beginning of the paper you provide a definition for CSR. This is good, but it would be better if you employ a definition from the literature, including the specific reference for it (or multiple).

 

Similarly, it would be convenient to include some references in the introduction when discussing the measures you include in the study and their operationalization, so as the reader can see to which literature your paper aims to make a contribution and from which sources you build on.

 

And in a similar logic, please include the most relevant references to support the theories you employ in the section devoted to the development of the hypotheses.

 

The way you divide CSR into 3 activities, is it based in any study or it is your own decision? If it is, please include the source and discuss why the authors do it in such a way. If it is your own, please explain more in detail how you come up with this different categories.

 

If the dependent variable is a dummy, you cannot use OLS regressions. You need to run regressions that account for the binary nature of the dependent variable. This point is critical as it can invalidate your findings (at least those using a dummy as dependent variable).

 

It would be useful to include the Variance Inflation Factors of your model for further check of no issues of collinearity.

 

The paper has a very short section devoted to conclusions and no discussion. I think it would be important to dig deeper in the discussion of your findings and how they relate to previous research, how and to which literatures you contribute, as well as the limitations of your study.

 

As a minor thing, I would recommend replacing the labeling of the hypotheses 1-1; 1-2 and 1-3 for 1a, 1b and 1c as I think it is less confusing.

 

All in all, I think the paper has potential to make a valuable contribution, but there are some things to improve. I hope the author(s) find my comments useful and constructive and I wish them luck with their paper.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your guidance. Based on studying your review report carefully, we have made significant improvements in the paper as follows:

First, we have employed a definition of CSR from literature on Page 1. W have added the definition of corporate social responsibility from Carroll (1991) in the introduction section and added it to te reference section.

Second, according to your recommendation on including some references in the introduction when discussing the measures used in the study and their operationalization, we have specified previous research that utilize the measures we used in our study.

Third, in line with your review comment on including most relevant references to support theories we employed in hypothesis development, we have specified references regarding our hypotheses and have added another study to our list references (e.g, Ryu & Ji, 2018).

Fourth, regarding a rationale for dividing CSR into three activities, we have summarized the rationale in the introduction section on Page 2.

Fifth, you asked that we should not use an OLS regression if the dependent variable is a dummy and that we should run regressions that account for the binary nature of the dependent variable. Thank you very muh for pointing this out. As directed, we have run a logistic regression and have indicated the results in Table 3.

Sixth, you recommended us to include the Variance Inflation Factors for further check of no issues of collinearity. Thank you for this recommendation. We have made<Table 4>, <Table 5>, and <Table 6> indicate VIF Max figures.

Seventh, you would recommend that we dig deeper into how findings relate to previous research, how and to which literature we contribute, and limitations of this study. We have specified the relationship/uniqueness of this study with previous research and have added explanations about contributions provided by this study. We have also added explanation of limitations of this study.

Finally, you asked us to replace 1-1; 1-2 and 1-3 with 1a, 1b and 1c to make it less confusing. This has been edited as directed.

We appreciate you for your insightful comments.

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have correctly addressed my suggestions and I have no further comments for them.