The Multi-Dimensional Interaction Effect of Culture, Leadership Style, and Organizational Commitment on Employee Involvement within Engineering Enterprises: Empirical Study in Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

see attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Dear Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises” (ID: 1731428). We have studied comments carefully and have made correction. Revised portion are marked by highlight in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

1. The authors investigate the potential of paternalistic leadership in the engineering industry. It is not clear what the particular contribution to “sustainability” is. It is also not clear why the engineering industry is so special that this study should precede a study of the benefits of paternalism in general.

Responses：The 2015 UN Summit saw 193 member states formally adopt 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which touched on making the job of employees more decent and driving economic growth. As a leadership style in the engineering industry, paternalistic leadership has an important impact on the sustainable development of the engineering industry. Please see the highlights introduction on Page1-2 of the article.

 

2. The definition of paternalistic comes quite late (162, benevolent, moral and authoritarian) and is mixed up with patriarchal (156). In how far does the authority that determines the potential success of authoritarian leadership depend on personal character that cannot be altered?

Responses：Thank you very much for your valuable comments, to make the reader more aware of the research article, we replace the professional vocabulary in the section "2.2 Paternalism", we do not mean "patriarchal", but "paternalistic". To eliminate this bias, we replaced it with "paternalistic" in the article. Authoritarian leadership is only one of paternalistic leadership. The potential success of authoritarian leadership needs to be played by benevolence and morality, and the status of authoritarianism in paternalistic leadership is gradually being replaced. We explained this issue in 2.2. Please see the highlights on Page 4 of the article.

3. It is not explained in how far age difference or gender (pater) are important. It is said though that the findings are rooted in Confucianism (176) and Chinese culture in general. Do the results apply to other countries, cultures and industries? Title and text should be clear in this matter.

Responses：In section 4, we added descriptions of age ratio differences and gender, strictly in accordance with the status quo of the actual engineering industry, to meet the requirements of age ratio and gender. Please see the highlights on Page11 of the article.

This study was only aimed at the engineering industry in the Taiwan region, the empirical research conclusion for Taiwan can provide an important reference for academic research and the sustainable development of engineering industry management in the region, and other regions can also make appropriate adjustments to engineering industry on this basis to meet the sustainability of the industry. We made slight adjustments to the title and introduction of the paper according to the comments of reviewers. Please see the “title”, “introduction” and “Future research recommendations” on page 1,2,11,18 of the article.

 

4. The sample of 200 is rather low. It is not specified to which part of the staff the questionnaires were distributed (administrative, technical, hierarchy level) and it can not be seen in which way the paternalistic principle should be scaled in larger structures (one patriarch or ever smaller patriarchs in hierarchical steps).

Responses：In the abstract part, the actual effective sample number of this study is 311, which meets the demand of SEM model sample size. However, we have made some clerical errors in the description of this part in the text and made corresponding corrections. Please see the highlights on Page11 of the article. Regarding the question of questionnaire allocation and personnel level, we added the related table 1 of assigned personnel. Please see the highlights table on Page11 of the article.

 

5. I get the impression that the research results are applicable to most administrative or planning services and not only to engineering (an “industry”?). They indicate the advantages of a clear hierarchy and this especially in the Chinese culture. So the interest is rather of ethnological value and may not constitute universally applicable wisdom. All leadership should be benevolent and moral but authority has a better standing in the Chinese culture.

Responses：Thank you for your comment. The research results take Taiwan as an example to provide a reference for the sustainable development of the overall engineering industry and academic research in the field of engineering management, the engineering industry in other regions can adjust the industry management accordingly on this basis. Please see the “introduction” on page1-2 of the article.

 

6. Quality of Communication: Does the paper clearly express its case, measured against the technical language of the field and the expected knowledge of the journal's readership?  Has attention been paid to the clarity of expression and readability, such as sentence structure, jargon use, acronyms, etc.: A professional review of the language is strongly suggested because several parts of the text are unclear.

Responses：Based on the comments of the reviewers, we have edited the language of the article accordingly and revised.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Recommendation: Accept with Minor Revision

Dear author/s,

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. I hope you find my comments useful as you consider revising the paper. The topic is fitting with the aim and scope of the Journal. I hope this review provides some useful feedback and wish you the best of luck with the development of this paper!

 

Additional Questions:

1.      Originality:  Does the paper contain new and significant information adequate to justify publication?: Yes. he authors identified an interesting topic and provided significant information on the relation of “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises”. However, there are some issues that need clarification. More importantly, the discussion regarding the research gaps is missing!

 

 

2.      Relationship to Literature:  Does the paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources?  Is any significant work ignored?: The literature review section is fine. Add the below mentioned article regarding leadership styles.

 

·         Rehman, S.-u., Bhatti, A., & Chaudhry, N. I. (2019). Mediating effect of innovative culture and organizational learning between leadership styles at third-order and organizational performance in Malaysian SMEs. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 9(1), 1-24. doi: 10.1186/s40497-019-0159-1

 

3. Methodology:  Is the paper's argument built on an appropriate base of theory, concepts, or other ideas?  Has the research or equivalent intellectual work on which the paper is based been well designed?  Are the methods employed appropriate?: The paper is well structured and follows the standards of presenting hypothesis and research design. The data are collected through questionnaire but I don’t see “Common Method Bias”. Kindly add Common Method Bias and cite the below mentioned articles. These articles helps you in writing this part.

 

Ø  Kraus, S., Rehman, S. U., & García, F. J. S. (2020). Corporate social responsibility and environmental performance: The mediating role of environmental strategy and green innovation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 160, 120262.

 

Ø  Rehman, S. U., Bhatti, A., Kraus, S., & Ferreira, J. J. (2020). The role of environmental management control systems for ecological sustainability and sustainable performance. Management Decision, 59(9), 2217-2237.

 

 

4. Results:  Are results presented clearly and analysed appropriately?  Do the conclusions adequately tie together the other elements of the paper?: The results section is fine.

 

5. Implications for research, practice and/or society:  Does the paper identify clearly any implications for research, practice and/or society?  Does the paper bridge the gap between theory and practice? How can the research be used in practice (economic and commercial impact), in teaching, to influence public policy, in research (contributing to the body of knowledge)?  What is the impact upon society (influencing public attitudes, affecting quality of life)?  Are these implications consistent with the findings and conclusions of the paper?: The implications of the research is not clear. Kindly improve this part.

 

6. Quality of Communication:  Does the paper clearly express its case, measured against the technical language of the field and the expected knowledge of the journal's readership?  Has attention been paid to the clarity of expression and readability, such as sentence structure, jargon use, acronyms, etc.: A professional review of the language is strongly suggested because several parts of the text are unclear.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Dear Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises” (ID: 1731428). We have studied comments carefully and have made correction. Revised portion are marked by highlight in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

1. Originality: Does the paper contain new and significant information adequate to justify publication?: Yes. he authors identified an interesting topic and provided significant information on the relation of “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises”. However, there are some issues that need clarification. More importantly, the discussion regarding the research gaps is missing!

Responses：We have added a corresponding discussion of the research gaps in the introduction, Please see the “introduction” on page 1-2 of the article.

 

2. Relationship to Literature: Does the paper demonstrate an adequate understanding of the relevant literature in the field and cite an appropriate range of literature sources?  Is any significant work ignored?: The literature review section is fine. Add the below mentioned article regarding leadership styles.

Rehman, S.-u., Bhatti, A., & Chaudhry, N. I. (2019). Mediating effect of innovative culture and organizational learning between leadership styles at third-order and organizational performance in Malaysian SMEs. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 9(1), 1-24. doi: 10.1186/s40497-019-0159-1

Responses：Thank you for your advice. We have added the above literature [108]. Please see the highlights on Page17 and 23 of the article.

3. Methodology: Is the paper's argument built on an appropriate base of theory, concepts, or other ideas?  Has the research or equivalent intellectual work on which the paper is based been well designed?  Are the methods employed appropriate?: The paper is well structured and follows the standards of presenting hypothesis and research design. The data are collected through questionnaire but I don’t see “Common Method Bias”. Kindly add Common Method Bias and cite the below mentioned articles. These articles helps you in writing this part.

Kraus, S., Rehman, S. U., & García, F. J. S. (2020). Corporate social responsibility and environmental performance: The mediating role of environmental strategy and green innovation. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 160, 120262.

Rehman, S. U., Bhatti, A., Kraus, S., & Ferreira, J. J. (2020). The role of environmental management control systems for ecological sustainability and sustainable performance. Management Decision, 59(9), 2217-2237.

Responses：Thank you for your valuable advice to make our article better. We have added "Common Method Bias" and the corresponding literature to the article. Please see the highlights on Page12 and 23 of the article.

 

4. Results: Are results presented clearly and analysed appropriately? Do the conclusions adequately tie together the other elements of the paper? : The results section is fine.

Responses：Thank you for your comment.

 

5. Implications for research, practice and/or society: Does the paper identify clearly any implications for research, practice and/or society? Does the paper bridge the gap between theory and practice? How can the research be used in practice (economic and commercial impact), in teaching, to influence public policy, in research (contributing to the body of knowledge)?  What is the impact upon society (influencing public attitudes, affecting quality of life)?  Are these implications consistent with the findings and conclusions of the paper?: The implications of the research is not clear. Kindly improve this part.

Responses：This study takes Taiwan's engineering industry as an example, and the results provide a reference for the sustainable development of the overall engineering industry. Please see the “introduction” on page 1-2 of the article.

 

6. Quality of Communication: Does the paper clearly express its case, measured against the technical language of the field and the expected knowledge of the journal's readership?  Has attention been paid to the clarity of expression and readability, such as sentence structure, jargon use, acronyms, etc.: A professional review of the language is strongly suggested because several parts of the text are unclear.

Responses：We polished the language of the article according to the comments of the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, thanks a lot for providing such an interesting study on engineering enterprises. However, I think it still needs some more preparation and hard work before being accepted. Please find my suggestions below.

 

This is a sound study but may need a bit more work to reorganise your findings and better match and compare your research with the literature. Please think about what your research can add to the scholarship and industry.

The introduction was not written very well and is a bit messy. You need to have a theme and a good flow. You should either introduce the gravity of leadership or culture and then combine them to raise a clear-cut research question, which is missing from your paper.

The most important issue is the paper lacks a rigorous methodology section. Although I quite like the great work you’ve done on building the causality of the factors, the information on study cases, population and research design process among others are not written in this paper.

More importantly, you didn’t discuss your great results! What do your results tell us? Are the findings limited to enterprises with Chinese backgrounds? What about Chinese companies running overseas, like in Africa, Australia and US? Will the findings still be useful?

Most of your findings are not novel if you don’t dig more. The finding–‘intangible cultural atmosphere can make contact and play an important role between supervisors and employees’– is common sense and rather vague. Please explain more. You should engage compare and elaborate on your results by engaging in more high-quality studies. Now, there is no reference in your section 6.

A few minor suggestions below:

Line 2:  effects not effect

Line 20: some small island countries’ economic development is not supported by engineering development but by tourism. Thus, it may not be very rigorous to say this. You could say that is for most countries or specify a country's name.

Lines 40-52: too long intro and not very necessary. Condense it to 2-3 lines.

Line 50: change ‘ , so in order to’ to ‘. To’

 

Lines 61-62: unclear; rewrite

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises” (ID: 1731428). We have studied comments carefully and have made correction. Revised portion are marked by highlight in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

1. This is a sound study but may need a bit more work to reorganise your findings and better match and compare your research with the literature. Please think about what your research can add to the scholarship and industry.

Responses：The research results take Taiwan as an example to provide a reference for the sustainable development of the overall engineering industry and academic research in the field of engineering management, the engineering industry in other regions can adjust the industry management accordingly on this basis. Please see the “introduction” on page 1-2 of the article.

 

2. The introduction was not written very well and is a bit messy. You need to have a theme and a good flow. You should either introduce the gravity of leadership or culture and then combine them to raise a clear-cut research question, which is missing from your paper.

Responses：We have modified the “introduction” part of the article according to the comments of the reviewer. Please see the “introduction” on page 1-2 of the article.

3. The most important issue is the paper lacks a rigorous methodology section. Although I quite like the great work you’ve done on building the causality of the factors, the information on study cases, population and research design process among others are not written in this paper.

Responses：Based on the comments of reviewer, in the methodology section, we have added "Common Method Bias" and the corresponding literature to the article. Please see the highlights on Page12 of the article. In terms of population and research design process, regarding the question of questionnaire allocation and personnel level, we added the related table 1 of assigned personnel. Please see the highlights table on Page11 of the article.

 

4. More importantly, you didn’t discuss your great results! What do your results tell us? Are the findings limited to enterprises with Chinese backgrounds? What about Chinese companies running overseas, like in Africa, Australia and US? Will the findings still be useful?

Responses：Thank you for your advice. We have added the explanation. Please see the highlights on Page17,18 of the article.

 

5. Most of your findings are not novel if you don’t dig more. The finding–‘intangible cultural atmosphere can make contact and play an important role between supervisors and employees’– is common sense and rather vague. Please explain more. You should engage compare and elaborate on your results by engaging in more high-quality studies. Now, there is no reference in your section 6.

Responses：Based on expert opinion, we have added and modified this section accordingly. Please see the highlights on Page17 of the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors want to establish a link between leadership style and employee satisfaction which then becomes a contribution to organizational sustainability (SDG?). A general dilemma is that the investigation focuses on engineering firms in Taiwan. As the preferential method, patriarchical leadership, has a facvorable status in the chinese culture (my obsevation), it would be good to know under wich assuptions it can be applied elsewhere. We do not get an outline of the alternatives (feminine or dark triad leadership?). So although major changes have been made to the original text its scientific value stays limited and, as the title now justly states, still mostly applicable to Taiwan. The method should be rather to demonstrate that patriarchichal leadership style is a universal management tool applicable in the engineering sector as well and not try to enlarge this from Taiwan engineering to wider applications as is suggested in the outlook.

188 - parental?

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Dear Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises” (ID: 1731428). We have studied comments carefully and have made correction. Revised portion are marked by highlight in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

The authors want to establish a link between leadership style and employee satisfaction which then becomes a contribution to organizational sustainability (SDG?). A general dilemma is that the investigation focuses on engineering firms in Taiwan. As the preferential method, patriarchical leadership, has a facvorable status in the chinese culture (my obsevation), it would be good to know under wich assuptions it can be applied elsewhere. We do not get an outline of the alternatives (feminine or dark triad leadership?). So although major changes have been made to the original text its scientific value stays limited and, as the title now justly states, still mostly applicable to Taiwan. The method should be rather to demonstrate that patriarchichal leadership style is a universal management tool applicable in the engineering sector as well and not try to enlarge this from Taiwan engineering to wider applications as is suggested in the outlook.

188 - parental?

Responses：We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the reviewer for the valuable comments. The 2015 UN Summit saw 193 member states formally adopt 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Goal 8 involves making employees more decent and driving economic growth. As a leadership style in the engineering industry, paternalistic leadership has an important impact on the sustainable development of the engineering industry. In engineering companies, we find that leaders employ a management style that is very similar to paternalistic leadership, this is a leadership style that prevails in the engineering industry, not a generic management model, and exploring this intrinsic link is critical to the sustainability of the future engineering industry. Please see the highlights “introduction” on Page2 (line 64-72) and Page 18 (line 719-723) of the article. In the engineering industry in other regions, the results of this study are still relevant, Please see the highlights (line 674-679; line 682-690) on Page18 of the article. In addition, reviewer 3 made comments for the first time: “This is a sound study but may need a bit more work to reorganise your findings and better match and compare your research with the literature. Please think about what your research can add to the scholarship and industry.”, then we made a lot of adjustments to the "introduction" part of this study based on this. Please see the “introduction” on page 1-2 of the article. And reviewer 3 made comments for the second time: “You could try to compare your results with non-engineering enterprises in discussion and tell us your findings.” We compared it to non-engineering enterprises based on reviewer opinion, Please see the highlights (line 682-690) on Page17 of the article. Therefore, We've added it to that content, the main research scope of this study is to focus on the engineering industry, the findings and conclusions also apply only to the engineering industry. We are also very grateful for the other comments made by the reviewer, but the topics of feminine leadership and triad leadership are not related to the paternalistic leadership mentioned in this study, and we believe they may be presented in other areas of study as leadership in both areas. Nevertheless, we followed the reviewer's opinions and incorporated them into our future research plans. Please see the highlights (line 725-731) on Page18 of the article.

We have made amendments to the “parental“ in line 188. Please see the highlights on line 188 of the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Thanks for preparing the revised manuscript. It has been much improved. I don't have much to add. Only a few minor suggestions that you could consider. 

Line 79 The font and size of Section 2 are odd. Please change it. 

I suggest attaching a copy of your questionnaire as a supplementary document. 

You could try to compare your results with non-engineering enterprises in discussion and tell us your findings. I would say that culture, leadership style and commitment matter for all enterprises. Also, the size of the enterprise is an important factor to consider. I understand that the length of each paper is limited. But I still feel your excellent results have not been well discussed despite a few sentences being added in the revised manuscript. 

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The multi-dimensional interaction effect of culture, leadership style, and organizational commitment on employee involvement within engineering enterprises” (ID: 1731428). We have studied comments carefully and have made correction. Revised portion are marked by highlight in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as follows:

 

Dear authors,

Thanks for preparing the revised manuscript. It has been much improved. I don't have much to add. Only a few minor suggestions that you could consider.

Line 79 The font and size of Section 2 are odd. Please change it.

I suggest attaching a copy of your questionnaire as a supplementary document.

You could try to compare your results with non-engineering enterprises in discussion and tell us your findings. I would say that culture, leadership style and commitment matter for all enterprises. Also, the size of the enterprise is an important factor to consider. I understand that the length of each paper is limited. But I still feel your excellent results have not been well discussed despite a few sentences being added in the revised manuscript.

 

Responses：We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the reviewer for the valuable comments. We have revised the font and size of Section2 based on the comments of the reviewer, Please see the highlights (line 79) on Page2 of the article. We have provided an additional questionnaire for this study in the annex, Please see the annex. We compared it to non-engineering enterprises based on reviewer opinion, Please see the highlights (line 682-690) on Page17 of the article. We added the size of the surveyed enterprises, Please see the highlights (line 440-442) on Page11 of the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

after changes the article seems appropriate to start an interesting discussion