Creating Shared Values by Integrating UN Sustainable Development Goals in Corporate Communication—The Case of Apparel Retail

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I like this double case study. However methodology is not well justified; not grounded in the literature so paper comes across as a journalistic anecdote for a local newspaper rather than an academic article. Very easy to fix. Just ground yourself in relevant literature. I use  this: ‘Expanding the scope of methodologies used in entrepreneurship research’, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.79–88.

If you prefer there is also work by Herve Dumes "Qualitative research revisited: epistemology of a comprehensive approach" and also 2020 book by Edward Groenland. Does not matter who you cite but would be good to be grounded in some RELEVANT literature. Pick what is best for you.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review your paper entitled “creating shared values by integrating UN sustainable development goals in corporate communication – the case of apparel retail”. The topic area is very interesting and clearly very current. Overall the paper is very easy to read and follow, as it is engaging.

 

There are some areas that may help to further strengthen the paper.

 

Introduction

The introduction is not only well written but also engaging demonstrating why it is important to focus on SDGs and how they are communicated. This convinces the reader that this topic is significant. Yet perhaps research questions could be outlined that the study is addressing.

 

Sustainable Development goals

Again this section is very well written and engaging. It may have been beneficial to guide the reader to the theoretical underpinning or signpost to the following sections.

 

The approach chosen is interesting, it may be beneficial to also outline while Swedish retailers were chosen – perhaps obvious, seeing as Sweden is on of the leading countries on sustainability in fashion, yet this may need to be justified more. More detail could be provided on the discourse analysis.

 

It would have been beneficial to provide more evidence from the reports, seeing as you have gone through a rich data set.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript. I find all the problems (shared values, communication, SDG) interesting and important but unfortunately have identified many fields which require improvements. The comments presented below:

1. In the Introduction all important notions should be defined. In this case (taking into account the title of the paper) there are: shared values and corporate communication. The aim of the study and justification for research should be formulated. Moreover, Introduction section lacks a brief characterization of research methodology and the structure of the article. These elements constitute a fundament of an academic paper and impact the readers’ interest towards further reading.

2. The authors characterized the apparel industry but focused mainly on manufacturing processes and their negative impact on environment. Although the issue of supply chain is mentioned, the justification for the choice of apparel retail as the subject for further analysis is not clear.

3. There are some language mistakes – e.g. the structure of the sentence (line 114)

4. This study lacks an extensive literature review. The literature background requires improvement.

First of all, discussing the values the author should distinguished such concepts as shared, common, espoused and core values.

Moreover, the methods of integration of company’s values, goals and communication were presented in 90’s by Blanchard and o’Connor. Please, take a look on following publications:

• Blanchard, K. & O'Connor, M. (1997). Managing By Values. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
• , S.L., Garcia, S. & Richley, B. (2006). Managing by Values: A Corporate Guide to Living, Being Alive and Making a Living in the XXI Century. MacMillan,

and the literature devoted to the issue of organizational culture.

5. The analysis of case studies is more of educational than of scientific value. The article lacks contribution to theory. The problem with CSR reporting is that companies voluntary report what they threat as valuable. It was stated before byy many authors, including such classic as:  Ina Ehnert, Sepideh Parsa, Ian Roper, Marcus Wagner & Michael MullerCamen (2016) Reporting on sustainability and HRM: a comparative study of sustainability reporting practices by the world's largest companies, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27:1, 88-108, and – for example - Piwowar-Sulej, K.; Bąk-Grabowska, D. Non-Permanent Employment and Employees’ Health in the Context of Sustainable HRM with a Focus on Poland. Soc. Sci. 2020, 9, 117.

The managerial implications are related mostly to companies under study.

6. The structure of the paper is unbalanced. What is the reason for introducing sub-section which includes only two sentences (line 174)?

7. There are mistakes in the list of references – e.g. line 428, 573  

Nevertheless I wish you the best going forward with your research. I hope that my comments will help you rebuild the article and get the acceptance for publishing it.

Author Response

Thank you. We have accounted for how we have used your feedback and comments in a separate document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review your paper again and for detailed response to my comments. Clearly, some (enough) revision has been effected in the manuscript.

In the future I would like to encourage you to study the relationship between managing by values and value-based management.