Employer Branding in the Context of the Company’s Sustainable Development Strategy from the Perspective of Gender Diversity of Generation Z

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I believe that the wording of the objectives (line 66 and line 68) is wrong as the verb is repeated twice.

As well, I suggest to pay more attention to the wording of the the sentence starting at line 102.

Line 167 grammar.

Line 232 rephrase - wording.  

I suggest to pay more attention to grammar and English.

Author Response

Thank you for the positive review of our article. All comments have been taken into account and the necessary changes have been applied. The article has been also checked in terms of language and grammar.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, the changes you have made to the article have taken it to an even higher quality level. I recommend publishing the article as it is.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the positive review and the acceptance of our article.

Reviewer 3 Report

OK

Author Response

Thank you very much for the positive review of our article, its high rating and acceptance.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

The study is interesting, but it has gaps to make it precarious in its format.

I suggest excluding the value judgments from the manuscript and the abstract because they undermine objectivity of the study.

Keywords should not contain acronyms, so use the full nomenclature instead of the acronym EVP.

Introduction is precarious for a scientific study. Concepts appear in the introduction that should be in the literature review section. The introduction introduces the theme, but does not include concepts. Another gap is missing in the introduction: problematization the research, question-problem, research justifications and originality of the study. Without these elements, the study is fragile and very vulnerable.

In section 2 - 2. Materials and Methods - the authors of the work did not specify the method used. This makes it difficult to replicate the study.

In the conclusions the aim is not resumed, which is a flaw in this section. Another flaw is that the study's suggestions are missing.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

That paper will have a higher value if Authors include much more fresh papers (published after 2017) that are published in journals indexed in Web of Science and have indexation in Scopus database.

Look at papers similar to:
Dziuba (2019). The use of the internet by older adults in Poland. Univ Access Inf Soc.

Hospitals' Financial Health in Rural and Urban Areas in Poland, Bem, A., (2019) SUSTAINABILITY 11(7)

 

Reviewer 3 Report

First, special thanks to the editors of Sustainability for the opportunity to read and review the manuscript of ‘Employer branding in the context of the company's sustainable development strategy from the perspective of gender diversity of the generation Z'. Manuscript ID: sustainability-1020011.

According to the abstract, this study focuses on '… to identify a correlation between generation Z's opinions on employer branding measures based on sustainable development taken by companies and the respondents' gender’, and suggests that ‘... the company follows a sustainable development strategy has a crucial impact on employer branding.’

The paper has serious flaws, additional experiments needed, research not conducted correctly and numerous improvements are needed to upgrade its academic level. The article needs much improvement in several areas, including its grounding in the abstract, theoretical background, problem statement, data selection and methods, implications, etc. Overall, in this point of view, the manuscript should be rejected because of the following critical issues and difficulties:

Serious points:

• Thus, there is no enough proof to demonstrate that the study based on a representative sample is a subset of a population that seeks to accurately reflect the characteristics of the larger group. In this point of view, the results are restricted and dominated by the female respondents.
• Recent study has also stressed the potential problem of common method bias, which describes the measurement error that is compounded by the sociability of respondents who want to provide positive answers (Chang, v. Witteloostuijn and Eden, 2010). Thus, raising potential common method variance as false internal consistency might be present in the same data.

• Maybe the authors should consider reframing the paper and submitting it again to an appropriate language for readers. For instance, lots of wordy, hard-to-read sentences, engagement and delivery issues, unclear statements etc. can be found in the article.

• The references may not provide consistent formatting throughout (i.e. different caps). It is essential to include author(s) name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title (where required), year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate) and pagination. DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier) are not mandatory but highly encouraged in each case. The bibliography software package i.e. EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, Reference Manager are recommended.

Critical issues and suggestions:

• The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum and more focused and shortened rewritten by providing a structured summary.
• The introduction part does not highlight the contribution of this investigation to the literature that should be declared as one of the most considerable importance of this approach in detail. Describe the rationale in the context of what known and not in this research area. What are the essential differences between what is known and not? How can this article fill this gap? The problem statement should be based on the previous results and emphasize the novelty of this study and need to be declared here.
• The theoretical background of the study should be divided from the introduction and it needs to provide an explicit statement of research question(s) concerning literature comparisons, outcomes, and study design. The hypotheses are not clearly related to the previous theoretical and empirical literature and the selected methodologies.
• In order to improve the validity, the u-test results and correlation matrices (Pearson is suggested) to added to be comparable. In the case of the logistic regression equation, the variables should be more described mathematically (the betas, indexes should be signed properly). After the regression, validate the repressors with VIF values to determine the lack of autocorrelation among them. VIF stands for variance inflation factor and the correlation of the independent variables.
• Additionally, i.e. factor, principal component analyses, SEM models, margin effects (moderators) and other more sophisticated methods are suggested to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables (factors).
• The conclusion and discussion section should go more beyond the interpretation and summary of the results.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The aim of the article is appropriately formulated and is in accordance with the title and content of the article. The methodology of the article is described in detail and I consider methods to be implemented correctly. Pilot study is appropriate. The conclusions are logical and based on the results achieved. Discussion is appropriate. The number and structure of literary sources are adequate. The language of the paper is clear and understandable.

Minor suggestions:

Lines 116 - 118 and 138 - 147: In fact, there can be 5 generations on the labour market in different countries/cultures, as few representatives of the Silent Generation are still working. Defining generations depends on the selected authors/sources, the country/culture and the specific historical events that shaped them. Therefore, the boundaries of individual generations may differ in different sources. Authors should point this out in the article. (Not only regarding Generation Z as mentioned in lines 148 - 151).

Lines 132 - 134: "However, it should be emphasised that the youngest generation on the employment market has not been described in as much detail as other generations." There is no reason why this is so. The authors could add an explanation for such a situation.

It would be appropriate to supplement at least briefly the differences in the behaviour of generations in relation to work (what tools and channels they use, how responsible they are, loyalty, etc.) as a contrast to generation Z.

Lines 271 - 274: Hypotheses, although logical and interesting, have no basis in theoretical part of the article.

Table 1: Level of studies and Engineering are not related or are just part of the specifics of Polish school system. According to this source: https://www.scholaro.com/pro/Countries/Poland/Education-System I assume it is just an incorrect translation.

The statement on the acceptance of both research hypotheses is not completely accurate, because there is at least one answer where the correlation with gender has not been confirmed. Although the authors pointed this out in the text and do not try to embellish the results, it changes the overall evaluation of the research hypotheses.

Limitations: Another major limitation is the young age of the respondents and the phase of the life cycle in which the representatives of the Z generation find themselves, as their preferences may change over time.