The Role of Sustainable Training and Reward in Influencing Employee Accountability Perception and Behavior for Corporate Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is about interesting and important research, however, it has serious drawbacks related to poor English and carelessness. Fort example:
- under table 1 there is a fragment from the template 'Tables may have a footer'
- "6. Patents"- this section is unnecessary,
- section title 2.3. should be 'Employees' Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability' instead of 'Corporate Sustainable Reward' - "5.3. Limitations" This research will ask the person ...' this future tense is incomprehensible,
- the first sentence of the introduction is too long (lines 29-35) and ends with a semicolon instead of a period,
          -   'Partners in achieving the goal together ...' (line 50) - the phrase is incomprehensible. It is not known where the sentence "In 2015 ...," (line 43) ends, because there is no period.
-   Lines 54-56 form an overly complex sentence,-   similarly an incomprehensible sentence (lines 452-454)
- The description of the research methods must be clearer and written in correct English (see e.g. lines 457 -459: 'Contact the contact person of each company's corporate social responsibility report through the Internet E-MAIL, and ask colleagues and friends to help send the questionnaire link to the respondents in a snowball manner through the Line group, etc., fill in directly online, and then collect the Internet Questionnaire data for further analysis'- is this a command for someone?),
- in Figure 1 there should be 'Employees' Sustainable Behavior' instead of 'Corporate Sustainable Behavior',
- lines 61-62: the sentence is incomprehensible,
    - There is no objective of the article presented in the introduction.
- The introduction also lacks a description of the contents of the rest of the article.
- Line 491: This sentence is amazing: ‘Therefore, the number of valid questionnaires for this study must be at least 550,000’
- Author contribution: authors should indicate who developed the research concept, who collected the data, etc.,
In the Data Availability Statement, indicate how interested persons can access the data used in your research.

 

 

Author Response

Point 1: The article is about interesting and important research, however, it has serious drawbacks related to poor English and carelessness. Fort example:

- under table 1 there is a fragment from the template 'Tables may have a footer'

 

Response 1: Thanks for your opinion. The fragment 'Tables may have a footer' from Table 1 is removed.

 

Point 2:

- "6. Patents"- this section is unnecessary,

Response 2: This section is removed.

 

Point 3:

- section title 2.3. should be 'Employees' Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability' instead of 'Corporate Sustainable Reward'

 

Response 3: Section title 2.3. is replaced the new title: 'Employees' Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability'.

 

Point 4:

- "5.3. Limitations" This research will ask the person ...' this future tense is incomprehensible,

 

Response 4: This setence has been revised to ‘This research has invited the person in charge of the corporate sustainability department, including the writer of the social responsibility report, and colleagues in the sustainability management consulting industry to assist in responding to the online questionnaire.’

 

Point 5:

-the first sentence of the introduction is too long (lines 29-35) and ends with a semicolon instead of a period,

 

Response 5: This setence has been revised to ‘With the economic take-off and the rapid advancement of science and technology, human beings have an increasing demand for the earth's resources. Thus, causing serious pollution and damage to the earth, resulting in poor environmental quality, extreme changes in the global climate, severe persecution of diverse ecosystems, and resource shortages are increasing serious. People are focusing on environmental issues, organizations are facing the challenge of reducing their impact on the environment, and people are gradually realizing the importance of sustainable development. Many companies have invested in the fields of energy conservation and ecological environmental protection, stepping up their pace to follow up on sustainability. The concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility) was introduced in 1999 by the then Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Kofi. Anan's initiative requires companies to implement CSR.’

 

Point 6:

-'Partners in achieving the goal together ...' (line 50)  the phrase is incomprehensible.

 

Response 6: This setence has been revised to ‘Business partners can jointly achieve SDGs goals and share benefits.’

 

Point 7:

It is not known where the sentence "In 2015 ...," (line 43) ends, because there is no period.

 

Response 7: This setence has been revised to ‘In 2015, the United Nations adopted the "2030 Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs), which put forward 17 key cores and indicators for global sustainable development. The 17 key cores are poverty eradication, end hunger, health and well-being, quality education, net water and sanitation, energy burden, gender equality, employment and economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, reducing imbalances, ensuring sustainable consumption and production, climate action, conservation and preservation of marine resources, conservation of ecological territories, sound institutions for peace and justice.’

 

Point 8:

- Lines 54-56 form an overly complex sentence, -similarly an incomprehensible sentence (lines 452-454)

 

Response 8: This sentence has been revised to ‘Due to the global environmental threats, including global warming, severe climate change; social problems are also becoming more and more obvious. Continued widening inequality between the rich and the poor has resulted in many social exclusions.’

 

Point 9:

-The description of the research methods must be clearer and written in correct English (see e.g. lines 457-459: 'Contact the contact person of each company's corporate social responsibility report through the Internet E-MAIL, and ask colleagues and friends to help send the questionnaire link to the respondents in a snowball manner through the Line group, etc., fill in directly online, and then collect the Internet Questionnaire data for further analysis'- is this a command for someone?),

Response 9: This setence has been revised to ‘Contact the person in charge of the Corporate Sustainability or Human Resources Department by phone or e-mail, and then issue a questionnaire to fill in when the response is approved. It can effectively avoid the situation where respondents fill in the questionnaire repeatedly due to the snowballing sampling method.’

 

Point 10:

-in Figure 1 there should be 'Employees' Sustainable Behavior' instead of 'Corporate Sustainable Behavior',

 

Response 10: Figure 1 & Figure 2 both are revised.

 

Point 11:

- lines 61-62: the sentence is incomprehensible,
- There is no objective of the article presented in the introduction.

Response 11: Introsuction (line 61-62) are revised to ‘These behaviors are valuable to all the countries/regions in the world to effectively reduce the poverty and hunger, raise the labor right and make the global society as stable and balanced as possible.’

 

Point 12:

-The introduction also lacks a description of the contents of the rest of the article.

Response 12: We added a section in the end of Introdution ‘This study will describe in the following article about the literature review, research methods, data analysis results, and important conclusions and suggestions.’

 

Point 13:

-Line 491: This sentence is amazing: ‘Therefore, the number of valid questionnaires for this study must be at least 550,000’

Response 13: The corrected sample size is 550. This sentence is revised to ‘The number of valid questionnaires for this study must be at least 550.’ Thanks for your kindly mention.

 

Point 14:

- Author contribution: authors should indicate who developed the research concept, who collected the data, etc., In the Data Availability Statement, indicate how interested persons can access the data used in your research.

 

Response 14: This section is revised as below:

Author Contributions: Conceptualization, Ya-Chin Kang, Hsien-Sheng Hsiao and Jia-Yi Ni; methodology, Ya-Chin Kang and Hsien-Sheng; validation.; formal analysis, Jia-Yi Ni.; investigation, Jia-Yi Ni; resources, Ya-Chin Kang, Hsien-Sheng Hsiao and Jia-Yi Ni; writing—original draft preparation, Ya-Chin Kang and Jia-Yi Ni; writing—review and editing, Ya-Chin Kang; supervision, Hsien-Sheng Hsiao; project administration, Ya-Chin Kang; funding acquisition, Ya-Chin Kang, Hsien-Sheng Hsiao and Jia-Yi Ni. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data Availability Statement: All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the authorized Ethics Committee. Further, interested persons can mail to the corresponding author (email: [email protected]) to access the data used in this research.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to read “A study to explore the prediction model of employees’ sustainable behavior that impacted by employees’ perception of corporate sustainable accountability, training, and reward”. I have the following comments:

·         Please refine the title. Currently, it is too lengthy.

·         The paper needs serious language editing. Starting from the title to the conclusion, there are multiple language and grammar errors. Example: title that impacted should be that is impacted and so on.

·         The innovation is not clear from the abstract. Please revise. The authors mentioned that there have been similar studies but failed to mention the innovation of the current study.

·         Line 20 questionnaire should be replaced with responses

·         Lines 28 to 53 need references for the claims, statistics, and factors provided and discussed. In the absence of proper references, these can not be justified.

·         The introduction is very weak, with no real problem highlighted, the novelty is missing, no paper organization is presented, and the objectives are not clear. It is not clear what the authors want to study and why it is important to study it.

·         The novelty of the study is not clear in the introduction. The authors need to justify why and how this is a novel study. What innovations are brought in by them, and how it is different from other similar studies?

·         The objectives of the study are not clear in the introduction. Please add the objectives in a numbered format to the paper.

·         Throughout the paper, the word “sustainable” has been overused and at times associated with random claims. Please ensure the term is only used where relevant and context is established and explained for the association of the term ‘sustainable” to other terms. For example, while the term “corporate sustainable training, reward and others” are widely used, it is not clear if the authors are talking about sustainable corporations or corporations with sustainable rewards etc. Each has different assessment parameters and the paper is not clear about it. Regardless the terms, sustainable corporations must be defined and well elaborated on.

·         What is sustainable accountability? This is not clear in the paper. I can see a mention in line 250, but it doesn’t justify its usage for the hypotheses. The authors need to establish this carefully before proposing the hypotheses. All relevant variables must be properly linked to it and supported by state-of-the-art literature before proposing the hypotheses.

·         More details and information about the questionnaire are required.

·         The paper needs a detailed discussion section. In the discussion section, compare the findings with other relevant studies and provide references to these. The authors must focus on the key improvements in their study compared to the ones they will compare it with. In addition, the innovations should also be highlighted.

 

·         The conclusion is very lengthy and verbose. It must be refined and reduced.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Thank you for your valuable comments and precious suggestions. The revisions and explanations of each comment point are detailed below.

Point 1: Please refine the title. Currently, it is too lengthy.

 

• Response 1: We really appreciate your precious advice, The title is reduced the length to ‘Explore the prediction model of employees’ sustainable behavior that is impacted by employees’ perception of corporate sustainable accountability, training, and reward.’

 

Point 2: The paper needs serious language editing. Starting from the title to the conclusion, there are multiple language and grammar errors. Example: title that impacted should be that is impacted and so on.

 

Response 2: Thanks for your valuable comments. The title is revised to ‘Explore the prediction model of employees’ sustainable behavior that is impacted by employees’ perception of corporate sustainable accountability, training, and reward.’

 

Point 3: The innovation is not clear from the abstract. Please revise. The authors mentioned that there have been similar studies but failed to mention the innovation of the current study.

Line 20 questionnaire should be replaced with responses

 

Response 3: The abstract is revied to ‘This study explores whether employees' perceptions of corporate human resource practices and employees' perceptions of corporate sustainability responsibility affect their adoption of sustainable behaviors. In the past, there have been relevant studies to explore the impact of corporate sustainable education training and sustainable rewards on employees' sustainable behavior, and the results are not significant. The employees of Commonwealth Magazine's Sustainable Citizenship Award-winning companies were selected as the research objects to explore whether sustainable education and training and sustainable rewards have any influence on sustainable behavior, and to explore whether employees' perception of corporate sustainable responsibility has a mediating effect. Through on-purpose sampling, with the employees of the working enterprise as the parent group, 345 valid questionnaire responses were collected. After conducting the hierarchical regression analysis, it is found that sustainable training and sustainable rewards have a significant impact on employees' sustainable behavior, and employees' perception of corporate sustainable responsibility also has a mediating effect. The innovation of this research is to adopted the empirical model to explore the perception of corporate sustainable accountability, and the influence of training and reward factors on employee’ sustainable behavior.’

 

Point 4: Lines 28 to 53 need references for the claims, statistics, and factors provided and discussed. In the absence of proper references, these can not be justified.

 

Response 4: The references of Lines 28 to 53 are applying and updated.

 

Point 5: The introduction is very weak, with no real problem highlighted, the novelty is missing, no paper organization is presented, and the objectives are not clear. It is not clear what the authors want to study and why it is important to study it.

 

Response 5: The introduction is revised. We tried to start fro overall level prespective, which include the environment cahnge, the focus of UN, CSR, and SDGs indicators, Then, the corporate level perspective, we tried to explain the policies and emplyees’ behavior need to be explored which indicate the research problem and the importance to study. The revised introduction section is as below:

With the economic take-off and the rapid advancement of science and technology, human beings have an increasing demand for the earth's resources. Thus, causing serious pollution and damage to the earth, resulting in poor environmental quality, extreme changes in the global climate, severe persecution of diverse ecosystems, and resource shortages are increasing serious. People are focusing on environmental issues, organizations are facing the challenge of reducing their impact on the environment, and people are gradually realizing the importance of sustainable development. Many companies have invested in the fields of energy conservation and ecological environmental protection, stepping up their pace to follow up on sustainability. The concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility) was introduced in 1999 by the then Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Kofi. Anan's initiative requires companies to implement CSR [1].

In 2004, the UN Global Compact proposed the concept of ESG for the first time, mainly to practice the principles of CSR, and evaluate the sustainable development indicators of an enterprise from the perspective of environment, society and company operation. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the "2030 Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs), which put forward 17 key cores and indicators for global sustainable development. The 17 key cores are poverty eradication, end hunger, health and well-being, quality education, net water and sanitation, energy burden, gender equality, employment and economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, reducing imbalances, ensuring sustainable consumption and production, climate action, conservation and preservation of marine resources, conservation of ecological territories, sound institutions for peace and justice [1]. Business partners can jointly achieve SDGs goals and share benefits. SDGs measure the levels required for global sustainable development from a more diverse perspective. Therefore, when setting goals, they clearly cover the three aspects of "economic growth", "social progress", and "environmental protection". Item indicators are interlinked and inseparable from each. Due to the global environmental threats, including global warming, severe climate change; social problems are also becoming more and more obvious. Continued widening inequality between the rich and the poor has resulted in many social exclusions [2]. The goal of sustainable development is to achieve the common prosperity and well-being of society, so that people and future generations can enjoy all the rights to life unaffected [3]. Companies will solve environmental and social issues in a more active, faster, and more comprehensive way [4]. While many corporates are developing sustainability policies, they are also faced with the problem of how to encourage employees to cooperate and participate or demonstrate their sustainable behaviors [5]. Therefore, it is very important to find the factors that may affect the sustainable development of the enterprise within the enterprises. Thus, the corporate policies are established to promote employees’ sustainable awareness and intent to lead to behaviors.

Most studies also mention that employees' supportive behavior is very important in the implementation of environmental [6] or socially friendly practices in enterprises [7]. Tosti-Kharas et al. [8] pointed out in their study, it is very important for employees to feel about the sustainable development of the organization, In the study of Ong et al. [9] and Wellman [10], it was found that, different individuals place different emphasis on the company's environmental or social improvement projects and are affected to different degrees. Therefore, employees' perception of corporate sustainability responsibility may affect the sustainable behaviors they display. However, in recent years, as corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues have been recognized as corporate strategies, focusing on improving corporate performance through economic, social and environmental outputs, there has also been a growing need for HR departments to formulate relevant policies and programs to drive corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability [11]. However, in the literature in Taiwan, there are very few studies on the sustainable behavior of employees from the perspective of human resource management. Therefore, this study aims to find out the impact on the sustainable development of enterprises in employee governance and human resource management, and from the perspective of corporate sustainability Education and training and rewards are the starting point, hoping to find out the relevant factors in the organization that can promote employees to develop their sustainable behavior.

In this context, this paper strived to be comprehensive in the empirical model of corporate employee' sustainable behavior. This research mainly explores: 1. To explore the impact of corporate sustainability education and training and corporate sustainability rewards on employees' perception of corporate sustainability; 2. To explore the impact of employees' perception of corporate sustainability responsibility on corporate employees' sustainable behavior; 3. To explore the mediating effect of employees' perception of corporate sustainable responsibility in the relationship between corporate sustainable education and training and employees' sustainable behavior; 4. To explore the mediating effect of employees' perception of corporate sustainability responsibility in the relationship between corporate sustainability reward system and employees' sustainability behavior.

This study will describe in the following article about the literature review, research methods, data analysis results, and important conclusions and suggestions.

 

 

Point 6: The novelty of the study is not clear in the introduction. The authors need to justify why and how this is a novel study. What innovations are brought in by them, and how it is different from other similar studies?

 

Response 6: The novelty of the research introduction are: 1. Context of corporate awareness of sustainability; 2. The importance of emplyees’ perception of corporate sustainable accountability, and training and rewards factors toward their behaviors. The revised introduction section is as below:

With the economic take-off and the rapid advancement of science and technology, human beings have an increasing demand for the earth's resources. Thus, causing serious pollution and damage to the earth, resulting in poor environmental quality, extreme changes in the global climate, severe persecution of diverse ecosystems, and resource shortages are increasing serious. People are focusing on environmental issues, organizations are facing the challenge of reducing their impact on the environment, and people are gradually realizing the importance of sustainable development. Many companies have invested in the fields of energy conservation and ecological environmental protection, stepping up their pace to follow up on sustainability. The concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility) was introduced in 1999 by the then Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) Kofi. Anan's initiative requires companies to implement CSR [1].

In 2004, the UN Global Compact proposed the concept of ESG for the first time, mainly to practice the principles of CSR, and evaluate the sustainable development indicators of an enterprise from the perspective of environment, society and company operation. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the "2030 Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs), which put forward 17 key cores and indicators for global sustainable development. The 17 key cores are poverty eradication, end hunger, health and well-being, quality education, net water and sanitation, energy burden, gender equality, employment and economic growth, innovation and infrastructure, reducing imbalances, ensuring sustainable consumption and production, climate action, conservation and preservation of marine resources, conservation of ecological territories, sound institutions for peace and justice [1]. Business partners can jointly achieve SDGs goals and share benefits. SDGs measure the levels required for global sustainable development from a more diverse perspective. Therefore, when setting goals, they clearly cover the three aspects of "economic growth", "social progress", and "environmental protection". Item indicators are interlinked and inseparable from each. Due to the global environmental threats, including global warming, severe climate change; social problems are also becoming more and more obvious. Continued widening inequality between the rich and the poor has resulted in many social exclusions [2]. The goal of sustainable development is to achieve the common prosperity and well-being of society, so that people and future generations can enjoy all the rights to life unaffected [3]. Companies will solve environmental and social issues in a more active, faster, and more comprehensive way [4]. While many corporates are developing sustainability policies, they are also faced with the problem of how to encourage employees to cooperate and participate or demonstrate their sustainable behaviors [5]. Therefore, it is very important to find the factors that may affect the sustainable development of the enterprise within the enterprises. Thus, the corporate policies are established to promote employees’ sustainable awareness and intent to lead to behaviors.

Most studies also mention that employees' supportive behavior is very important in the implementation of environmental [6] or socially friendly practices in enterprises [7]. Tosti-Kharas et al. [8] pointed out in their study, it is very important for employees to feel about the sustainable development of the organization, In the study of Ong et al. [9] and Wellman [10], it was found that, different individuals place different emphasis on the company's environmental or social improvement projects and are affected to different degrees. Therefore, employees' perception of corporate sustainability responsibility may affect the sustainable behaviors they display. However, in recent years, as corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues have been recognized as corporate strategies, focusing on improving corporate performance through economic, social and environmental outputs, there has also been a growing need for HR departments to formulate relevant policies and programs to drive corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability [11]. However, in the literature in Taiwan, there are very few studies on the sustainable behavior of employees from the perspective of human resource management. Therefore, this study aims to find out the impact on the sustainable development of enterprises in employee governance and human resource management, and from the perspective of corporate sustainability Education and training and rewards are the starting point, hoping to find out the relevant factors in the organization that can promote employees to develop their sustainable behavior.

 

Point 7: The objectives of the study are not clear in the introduction. Please add the objectives in a numbered format to the paper.

 

Response 7: The objectives of the study are revised in the introduction section. The research objectives are as below:

In this context, this paper strived to be comprehensive in the empirical model of corporate employee' sustainable behavior. This research mainly explores: 1. To explore the impact of corporate sustainability education and training and corporate sustainability rewards on employees' perception of corporate sustainability; 2. To explore the impact of employees' perception of corporate sustainability responsibility on corporate employees' sustainable behavior; 3. To explore the mediating effect of employees' perception of corporate sustainable responsibility in the relationship between corporate sustainable education and training and employees' sustainable behavior; 4. To explore the mediating effect of employees' perception of corporate sustainability responsibility in the relationship between corporate sustainability reward system and employees' sustainability behavior.

This study will describe in the following article about the literature review, research methods, data analysis results, and important conclusions and suggestions.

 

Point 8: Throughout the paper, the word “sustainable” has been overused and at times associated with random claims. Please ensure the term is only used where relevant and context is established and explained for the association of the term ‘sustainable” to other terms. For example, while the term “corporate sustainable training, reward and others” are widely used, it is not clear if the authors are talking about sustainable corporations or corporations with sustainable rewards etc. Each has different assessment parameters and the paper is not clear about it. Regardless the terms, sustainable corporations must be defined and well elaborated on.

 

Response 8: The term “sustainable” is mostly used relevant to four research variables ‘Corporate sustainable training’; ‘corporate sustainable reward’; ‘employees’ perception of corporate sustainable accountability’; ‘employees’ sustainable behavior’ in the study. In the part of the thesis related to the context of the enterprise's implementation of sustainability, all the texts are reviewed, and the relevant words are used to replace the description to show the difference, such as continuous corporate growth, operation of continuous corporate revenue growth, etc.

 

Point 9: What is sustainable accountability? This is not clear in the paper. I can see a mention in line 250, but it doesn’t justify its usage for the hypotheses. The authors need to establish this carefully before proposing the hypotheses. All relevant variables must be properly linked to it and supported by state-of-the-art literature before proposing the hypotheses.

 

Response 9: We added the definition of ‘Employees' Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability’ and also clarified for he hypotheses. The definition is ‘Employees' Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability is employees aware that the company is responsible for what corporate could do better for the entire economy, environment and society [42,43].’

 

Point 10: More details and information about the questionnaire are required.

 

Response 10: The example of items in four research variables are added into the instruments section showing as below.

3.2.1. Corporate Sustainable Training Scale

…An example item of Corporate Sustainable Training Scale is: ‘It provides sustainability education training for all employees in you company.’ …

3.2.2. Corporate Sustainable Reward Scale

… An example item of Corporate Sustainable Reward Scale is: ‘There are incentives for environmental protection behaviors in your company.’ …

3.2.3. Employees’ Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability Scale

… An example item of Employees’ Perception of Corporate Sustainable Accountability Scale is: ‘In your company, activities are held to protect and improve the natural environment.’ ...

3.2.4. Employees’ Sustainable Behavior Scale

… An example item of Employees’ Sustainable Behavior Scale is: ‘In the workplace, I will perform the work assigned by the organization in a way that is beneficial to society and the environment.’ …

 

 

 

Point 11: The paper needs a detailed discussion section. In the discussion section, compare the findings with other relevant studies and provide references to these. The authors must focus on the key improvements in their study compared to the ones they will compare it with. In addition, the innovations should also be highlighted.

 

Response 11: The research findings have been refined and revised. The results of the previous research are compared and discussed. We conducted the discussion and dialogue with the theoretical perspectives, amd final to carry out by drawing the exploration model.

 

Point 12: The conclusion is very lengthy and verbose. It must be refined and reduced.

 

Response 12: The conclusion has been refined and reduced to the content corresponding to the research purpose, and presented separately according to the point, which has achieved a novelty of organization and structured presentation.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have corrected the article and it may now be accepted for publication

 

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments, which are of great help in improving the quality of the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Most of my comments still stand. The following needs proper addressing:

1. The title is still lengthy and vague. It is more like a paragraph and must be revised.

2. The English language has not been improved at all. Infact I can see more issues than before in the revised version. Again from title (explore should be exploring) to the conclusion the language is vague and mostly incorrect. I recommend involving professionals. Even the responses are unclear and needs proper language for communication.

3. Point 3 is not answered at all.The innovation is not clear from the abstract. Please revise. The authors mentioned that there have been similar studies but failed to mention the innovation of the current study. What the authors have presented as innovation is not an innovation but a method.

4.  I still cant see the novelty, problem and what the authors want to study and why it is important to study it.

5. The novelty of the study is not clear in the introduction. The authors need to justify why and how this is a novel study. What innovations are brought in by them, and how it is different from other similar studies?

6. It is still not clear "while the term “corporate sustainable training, reward and others” are widely used, it is not clear if the authors are talking about sustainable corporations or corporations with sustainable rewards etc. Each has different assessment parameters and the paper is not clear about it. Regardless the terms, sustainable corporations must be defined and well elaborated on." The authors response is not sufficent to answer the point raised.

7. Again "9: What is sustainable accountability? This is not clear in the paper. I can see a mention in line 250, but it doesn’t justify its usage for the hypotheses. The authors need to establish this carefully before proposing the hypotheses. All relevant variables must be properly linked to it and supported by state-of-the-art literature before proposing the hypotheses." This hasnt been answered except changing a couple of words which doesnt answer the question raised.

8. The questionnaire must be added to the appendix.

9. he paper needs a detailed discussion section. In the discussion section, compare the findings with other relevant studies and provide references to these. The authors must focus on the key improvements in their study compared to the ones they will compare it with. In addition, the innovations should also be highlighted.

10. The conclusion is very lengthy and verbose. It must be refined and reduced. Instead of reducing it the authors have extended it. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your valuable suggestions. The point-by-point response is as following.

Point 1: Most of my comments still stand. The following needs proper addressing: The title is still lengthy and vague. It is more like a paragraph and must be revised.

 

Response 1: The title is revised to “The role of sustainable training and reward in influencing employee accountability perception and behavior for corporate sustainability.”

 

Point 2: The English language has not been improved at all. Infact I can see more issues than before in the revised version. Again from title (explore should be exploring) to the conclusion the language is vague and mostly incorrect. I recommend involving professionals. Even the responses are unclear and needs proper language for communication.

 

Response 2: Thank you for your kindly opinions. We have got the language editing service from the MDPI, including grammar check, spelling, punctuation and phrasing of our manuscript to improve readability. The title is revised as below: “The role of sustainable training and reward in influencing employee accountability perception and behavior for corporate sustainability.”

 

Point 3: Point 3 is not answered at all. The innovation is not clear from the abstract. Please revise. The authors mentioned that there have been similar studies but failed to mention the innovation of the current study. What the authors have presented as innovation is not an innovation but a method.

 

Response 3: The innovation is addressed in the abstract as below.

“This study is to engage in constructing the prediction model to examine the relationship between mentioned factors beyond the previous related studies as the first reason. The second reason is the employees of Commonwealth Magazine's Sustainable Citizenship Award-winning companies were selected as the research objects to verify whether employees' perception of corporate sustainable responsibility has a mediating effect, but without the rest employees of the enterprise are to be verified.”

 

Point 4: I still cant see the novelty, problem and what the authors want to study and why it is important to study it.

 

Response 4: The innovation and the importance of this study are addressed in the abstract as point 3 mentioned.

 

Point 5. The novelty of the study is not clear in the introduction. The authors need to justify why and how this is a novel study. What innovations are brought in by them, and how it is different from other similar studies?

 

Response 5: This research investigates the current situation of the implementation and satisfaction of sustainable training and sustainable rewards in enterprises. It is expected that the research results can provide a reference for general enterprises to complete the concept.

 

Point 6: It is still not clear "while the term “corporate sustainable training, reward and others” are widely used, it is not clear if the authors are talking about sustainable corporations or corporations with sustainable rewards etc. Each has different assessment parameters and the paper is not clear about it. Regardless the terms, sustainable corporations must be defined and well elaborated on." The authors response is not sufficient to answer the point raised.

 

Response 6: The definitions and measurement of each variable are added with some description in the literature review to strength, as indicated in each paragraph.

 

Point 7: Again "9: What is sustainable accountability? This is not clear in the paper. I can see a mention in line 250, but it doesn’t justify its usage for the hypotheses. The authors need to establish this carefully before proposing the hypotheses. All relevant variables must be properly linked to it and supported by state-of-the-art literature before proposing the hypotheses." This hasnt been answered except changing a couple of words which doesnt answer the question raised.

 

Response 7: The definitions and measurement of each variable are added with some description in the literature review to strength, as indicated in each paragraph.

 

Point 8: The questionnaire must be added to the appendix.

 

Response 8: We have added the questionnaire items in the appendix.

 

Point 9: The paper needs a detailed discussion section. In the discussion section, compare the findings with other relevant studies and provide references to these. The authors must focus on the key improvements in their study compared to the ones they will compare it with. In addition, the innovations should also be highlighted.

 

Response 9: We have added more items to discussion section to show that the innovative findings of this study, and managerial implications are added to show the insights of the research outcome. Such as the employees’ sustainability behavior could be promoted by sustainable training and non-monetary rewards.

 

Point 10: The conclusion is very lengthy and verbose. It must be refined and reduced. Instead of reducing it the authors have extended it.

 

Response 10: We have used the items to show the conclusions in order to make the readers and future researchers could be easier to realize the meanings of the important conclusion.

Also, the manuscript has undergone English language editing by MDPI. The text has been checked for correct use of grammar and common technical terms. The certificate is as followed.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for addressing my comments