Exploring Green Human Resource Adoption and Corporate Sustainability in Nigerian Manufacturing Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author(s), 

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper.  I agree that this is an important and pertinent topic.  There are a few areas where I would encourage the authors to give further thought, as follows:

 

INTRODUCTION

 

• Novelty and originality of the research must be added to the abstract.

• The introduction should clearly illustrate (1) what we know (the key theoretical perspectives and empirical findings) and what do we not know (major, unaddressed puzzle, controversy, or paradox the study address, or why it needs to be addressed and why this matters). And, (2) what will we learn from the study and how does the study fundamentally change, challenge, or advance scholars’ understanding Much sharper problematization is required so that the introduction draws the reader into the paper. The introduction, therefore, needs to do a better job of setting the stage for the articulation of the theoretical contributions of the study. At the end of the introduction, we should have a clear idea of what the paper is about (i.e. its motivation, the gap in understanding that the paper is trying to address, and a summary of theoretical contributions).With references to 2022- 2021.

Paragraph 1, with no references, explains the context of the research.

Paragraph 2, with references, explains very generally what we know about the topic introduced in Paragraph 1.

Paragraph 3 explains what we need to find out.

Paragraph 4 explains briefly what this paper will do to find out, the method, etc.

Paragraph 5, with no references, explains the structure of this paper.

• In conclusion, try to add clear practical and theoretical implications for your research.

• The authors need to draw substantive conclusions from their results and suggest, and develop recommendations for further research.

• What are the limitations of this research and how can it be solved by other researchers?

• Authors should use references (2020-2021).

Best of luck with the further development of the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We appreciate your time, work, and contribution to our paper. We got the areas of concern from the various reviewers and made the appropriate changes.

We believe our changes will make this paper a better fit for the special issues we would like to publish in the journal.

Best wishes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The research topic is thought-provoking and of interest for current concerns and deserves to be studied. For this reason, I read with interest and appreciated the authors' effort.

However, certain questions arose. I will present these in the following.

The abstract contains identical phrases from the body of the article.

The abbreviation EM appears without explanation. (line 79)

In the text there are several references written with names and numbers. (e.g. lines 83, 95, 112, 114, 122, 137, 157, and manu others)

I suggest that the concept of GHRM be clarified in the introduction and why it is defined (only) by Green Recruitment and Selection, Green Training and Green Compensation.

The links between the GHRM components and the Corporate Sustainability components must also be explained.

Environmental Sustainability is not very clear defined.

Regarding the model, I suggest that for each hypothesis be inserted the references that substantiate it.

How was the model substantiated? It would be necessary to highlight the link between the model and the literature review.

The conceptual model itself does not seem clearly defined. In general, a model assumes the existence of a relationship between the variables of which it is composed. In this case, why do the authors consider that there is no connection between the analyzed variables, using the null hypothesis? If they found out from the literature review that there is no connection, then there is no point in testing it. It is quite strange to formulate the null hypothesis and then reject it and thus accept the connection.

In other words, the conceptual model must be justified.

Why didn't the authors test for other links between the selected variables?

The conclusions, managerial implications and limitations section should be expanded.

The conclusions are somewhat general and do not reflect very well the results of the authors' own research.

Regarding the managerial implications, these are only suggestions for HR managers, but it is not explained why managers should follow those suggestions. Limitations of the study are not described.

I hope these suggestions are useful.

Good luck!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We appreciate your time, work, and contribution to our paper. We got the areas of concern from the various reviewers and made the appropriate changes.

We believe our changes will make this paper a better fit for the special issues we would like to publish in the journal.

Best wishes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

 Dear author(s)

It was my pleasure to review your manuscript entitled “Exploring green human resource adoption and corporate sustainability in Nigerian manufacturing industry” and advise you to prosper your current research project. In my view, your topic has touched on a critical issue in a fascinating context. However, there are many spaces to be improved in terms of argumentation, theoretical background, research method, and findings. I hope my below comments would help you develop your work into groundbreaking research in your domain.

 1. The abstract should indicate the innovation of the work.

2. The positioning of the paper is not entirely clear. It is better to explain the gap in this article further.

The introduction should clearly illustrate (1) what we know (the key theoretical perspectives and empirical findings) and what we do not know (major, unaddressed puzzle, controversy, or paradox does the study address, or why it needs to be addressed and why this matters) and (2) what we will learn from the study, and how the study fundamentally changes, challenges, or advances scholars’ understanding. Much sharper problematization is required so that the introduction draws the reader into the paper. The introduction, therefore, needs to do a better job of setting the stage for the articulation of the theoretical contributions of the study. At the end of the introduction, we should have a clear idea of what the paper is about (i.e., its motivation, the gap in understanding that the paper is trying to address, and a summary of theoretical contributions).

Please provide more information on the context of your study. I would like to better understand the context of your empirical work.

3. Theoretical literature has not been considered and reviewed. It is better to observe the connection between the contents. Try to explain everything except the topics in order to establish the necessary coherence.

4. What were the reasons for using the Spss software?

How is the model fitted?

How the validity and reliability of the questionnaire were measured before sending the questionnaires?

What were the reasons for choosing this statistical population?

 5. In the discussion section, for each case study that you have identified separately, the results should be written, what effects it has on the main result?

 6. The conclusion shows the final results of your research (you need a conclusion for your research). This section is weak.

Please clarify what are the theoretical and practical contributions of your research.

What are the results of your research, and how can it help your community?

Limitations – There is no mention of the limitations of this study.

Another round of spellchecking by a native speaker is highly recommended.

 Reference.

- Using the following references could be beneficial as these add more evidence to the literature review section:

Tajpour, M., Hosseini, E., Mohammadi, M., & Bahman-Zangi, B. (2022). The Effect of Knowledge Management on the Sustainability of Technology-Driven Businesses in Emerging Markets: The Mediating Role of Social Media. Sustainability, 14(14), 8602.

 Tajpour, M., Salamzadeh, A., Salamzadeh, Y., & Braga, V. (2021). Investigating social capital, trust and commitment in family business: case of media firms. Journal of Family Business Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFBM-02-2021-0013

 Best of luck with the further development of the paper.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We appreciate your time, work, and contribution to our paper. We got the areas of concern from the various reviewers and made the appropriate changes.

We believe our changes will make this paper a better fit for the special issues we would like to publish in the journal. 

Best wishes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I appreciate your effort to improve the article.

As I stated in the previous review, the hypotheses should have been substantiated based on the literature review. I think that a reading of several articles published in Sustainability, for example, could clarify this aspect.

For example, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/763/htm

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Sus_HRM

Broadly speaking, this kind of research is a bit old-fashioned, but it's not wrong. That's how I learned during my university studies, but this was many years ago. Meanwhile, many other research designs have been developed.

Regarding the references in the text, as far as I know, numbers are used and not the names of the authors.

To a certain extent, this type of research could have a didactic role for young researchers. If the academic editor accept this model, I'm not against it. It can be understood as a remember of previous research stages.

Good luck!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to review and honestly make suggestions for our paper. Your directions have been taken into account, and the changes listed below have been implemented.

1) We have gone through the sample article and we have followed through.

2) We sincerely apologize for your second concern. The citation style has been revised to meet the Journal's requirements.

We believe that our changes have increased the worth and readability of this paper. Furthermore, the article suits this special issue and the Journal better.

Best regards,

Adubor N. Vivian

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors

Hope you are doing well. According to the review of this article, the corrections have been some made, but it needs a minor revision. please refer my comments.

 

Best of luck with the further development of the paper.

 In the discussion section, for each case study that you have identified separately, the results should be written, what effects it has on the main result?

 The conclusion shows the final results of your research (you need a conclusion for your research). This section is weak.

Please clarify what are the theoretical and practical contributions of your research.

 Reference.

- Using the following reference could be beneficial as these add more evidence to the literature review section:

Tajpour, M., Hosseini, E., Mohammadi, M., & Bahman-Zangi, B. (2022). The Effect of Knowledge Management on the Sustainability of Technology-Driven Businesses in Emerging Markets: The Mediating Role of Social Media. Sustainability, 14(14), 8602.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to review and honestly make suggestions for our paper. Your directions have been taken into account, and the changes listed below have been implemented.

The discussion has been able to identify each case separately, the results has also been indicated there. The conclusion has shown the final results of the research, the theoretical and practical conclusions have been added. One of the previous references that was suggested for us to use was used in the research.

We believe that our changes have increased the worth and readability of this paper. Furthermore, the article suits this special issue and the Journal better.

Best regards,

Adubor N. Vivian