Do the Quota Applications for Women on Boards Improve Financial Performance
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
attached
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: You should clarify the contributions of the paper which are not elaborated well in the current paper. You can talk about the following contributions: What insights can you provide based on your finding? Do they push forward our understanding? What should we do with your research? Do you have any suggestions to improve the current regulation or practice? Adding the above discussion and extend your literature review may help you make more contributions and position your contributions better
Response 1: The original value and contributions of the paper are given in discussion and conclusion. Line 277-293 in Discussion and Line 308 in Conclussion. Some recommendations can be made for further research intentions Line 315 in Conclussion (in red).
Point 2: My main suggestion is that you should tell a richer story and link to more literature by discussing more relevant channels. One main channel is corporate governance. You should consider, for example, market competition as a governance mechanism: Giroud, X., and H., Mueller, 2011, Corporate governance, product market competition, and equity prices. Journal of Finance 66, 563-600. The interactions between the executives, such as mutual monitoring among the executives: Li, Z.F., 2014, Mutual monitoring and corporate governance, Journal of Banking & Finance, 45, 255-269; Li, Z.F., 2018, Mutual monitoring and agency problem. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272305464_Mutual_Monitoring_and_Agency_Problems; and external interactions between CEOs in the industry tournament: Coles et al. 2018, Industry Tournament Incentives, Review of Financial Studies, 31(4):1418-1459; On inside debt as governance: Li, F., Lin, S., Sun, S., Tucker, A. 2018. Risk-Adjusted Inside Debt. Global Finance Journal 35: 12-42. Or compensation incentives: Core, J. and Guay W., 1999, The use of equity grants to manage optimal equity incentive levels, Journal of Accounting and Economics 28, 151-184. You need to discuss those aspects of possible channels to give readers a more comprehensive view and a richer story and/or point out future research direction from these perspectives.
Response 2: A richer story and more literature were used in Discussion Chapter. Line 301-305 (in red) and the papers were added in references 53.-58. More literature were used Line 122-126. (in red)
Point 3: Last, you need to seriously proofread the paper (by hiring a professional editor for instance). There are many typos, grammatical errors, and awkward and vague language throughout the paper. For example, the abstract is not well written. I tried to revise the abstract for you as below. Make everything concise and straightforward; avoid long sentences; use simple, meaningful words.
Response 3: Proofreading was made by hiring a professional editor (in red).
Abstract was revised as Reviewer 1 noted. Line 11-27. Some long sentences were shortened (Line 128, 203) and typos were corrected.(Line 53, 74, 80, 99-101, 106-108, 120, 131, 191 ), vague language was corrected (Line 136-142, 178, 180, 189-202), Title of Analyses Used in the Study was corrected. Line 201-209. Title of Discussion was added. Line 263. (in red)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper's composition is coherent; the structure is logical and meets the goal of the paper. The title "Do the Quota Applications for Women on Boards Improve Financial Performance" put well the paper's objective; it is clear and expresses the issue being assessed very well. The abstract is formulated adequately along with the true picture of the paper; all required components are mentioned there. All the tools and methods the author uses are reasonable and well described and adequately fit the problem being assessed to give the reliable results. Conclusions are related to the results presented before reflecting the assessed issue at a professional level. All the figures and tables are complete and understandable. Authors use enough tables and figures featuring a great deal of data being processed hence adding a higher added value to the paper. I found the paper well-written and cohesive. Authors appear to be professionals, very well oriented and involved in the issue. The length of the paper is adequate to the significance of the topic. However minor revision would suffice to get the manuscript published in the journal. It is recommended that the authors make a relatively minor revision, and the specific amendments to the text are as follows:
The goal explicitly stated within the Introduction clearly expressing the main problem and purpose of the paper and author's intention being assessed and discussed within the paper along with its clear and unambiguous formulation would be recommended.
Also the conclusion and discussion sections could be separated. I recommend adding a brief research limitation reflecting the assessed issue along with the further research intentions related to the topic in the future to the conclusion section.
After the incorporation of these observations I recommend this paper to be published in Sustainability journal.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: The goal explicitly stated within the Introduction clearly expressing the main problem and purpose of the paper and author's intention being assessed and discussed within the paper along with its clear and unambiguous formulation would be recommended.
Response 1: Abstract was revised for clear and unambiguous formulation (Line 11-27). The purpose of this study is given in introduction (Line 61-68). (in red)
Point 2: Also the conclusion and discussion sections could be separated. I recommend adding a brief research limitation reflecting the assessed issue along with the further research intentions related to the topic in the future to the conclusion section.
Response 2: The conclusion and discussion sections was separated (Line 263) and added a brief research limitation (Line 338-343) and further research intentions in the conclusion section (line 315-337). (in red)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Well done. Please proofread the paper one more time. Congrats on the publication!
