When and How Does Sustainable HRM Improve Customer Orientation of Frontline Employees? Satisfaction, Empowerment, and Communication

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I find the study valuable for industries in services. The aim of the research is clear, methodology well chosen and properly used. However, I find important to be specific in terminology of rewarding. Total compensation includes financial forms of pay as well as employees’ benefits and services. Authors consider reward separately from benefit. But based on definitions, benefits may be considered part of the reward. It is also not clear, what authors considers as indicators of employees’ satisfaction. There is enthusiasm mentioned in the discussion as the consequence of employee’s satisfaction. This is however more matter of engagement. I suggest to include into methodology the content of all the variables in the moderation model, as they were the content of survey.  

The discussion brings relevant findings which may be considered contribution to theory of HRM and certainly are valuable for service context business.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I believe that the authors should provide answers to some questions.

I think it should better underpin the relevance of the construct of sustainable HRM. How does this construct differ from High Performance or High Commitment Work Systems? Does it involve considering the sustainability of competitive advantages from not only an economic, but also a social and environmental perspective? Why they leave out performance assessment practices, which are so directly linked to training and reward systems?

Empowerment practices often act as an intrinsic motivation and thus can affect employee satisfaction. Then, why the authors only consider their “possible” moderating effect?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is well written. It terms of language, it requires only minor English editing and spell-check. 

In terms of the content, introduction and explanation of the concept of Sustainable Human Resource is missing and should be included. 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This is a good piece of work; I think authors should also address below comments.

- Literature review and discussions need further development.  I would suggest integrate below recent articles to enrich literature review and discussions of the paper:

• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.10.055
• https://doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2018.1426751   
• https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12664

- Implication should be accessible to the managers and it does not respond to ‘so what’ and ‘how’ questions? For example, how to increase organizational empowerment or communication as it strengthens the relationship between FLEs’ satisfaction and their customer orientation.

- Please ensure the text reads well and professionally. There are some odd uses of English, for example, “Finally, 37.8% were married, and 41.9% worked in a…” It sounds like the respondents   eventually managed to get married. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf