Sustainable Metrics in Project Financial Risk Management
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper's topic and conducted research are very important and justified to be presented in a high-quality Journal. The subject is very important for the literature. The paper is informative. However, some issues need to be addressed carefully. My decision is – a major revision, with some amendments. Please see my comments and suggestions below.
Point 1. You should have no more than 6 keywords.
Point 2. This study should add the section Literature Review. The following paper can be a good example to help you improve your paper:
- Qing, L.; Chun, D.; Dagestani, A.A.; Li, P. Does Proactive Green Technology Innovation Improve Financial Performance? Evidence from Listed Companies with Semiconductor Concepts Stock in China. Sustainability 2022, 14, 4600. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14084600
Point 3. More relevant literature should be added to support sections 2.1 and 2.2.
Point 4. A comparative analysis with the results of previous literature should be performed in the discussion.
Point 5. The authors should present theoretical contributions and practical insights in the conclusion. Also, the summary of the main findings should be improved. The following papers can be good examples to help you improve your paper:
-Ren, S., Huang, M., Liu, D., & Yan, J. (2022). Understanding the Impact of Mandatory CSR Disclosure on Green Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms. British Journal of Management, 00: 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12609
-Qing, L.; Chun, D.; Ock, Y.-S.; Dagestani, A.A.; Ma, X. What Myths about Green Technology Innovation and Financial Performance's Relationship? A Bibliometric Analysis Review. Economies 2022, 10, 92. https://doi.org/10.3390/economies10040092
Good luck for your work!
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Project management is certainly one of the most relevant topics. In
fact, any management task at all levels is solved, as a rule, through
the implementation of projects.
The growing attention to global environmental and humanitarian problems
leads to the fact that the criteria for evaluating performance will be
constantly tightened.
A number of studies in the field of responsible investment conducted
over the past few years by international banks (for example, Morgan
Stanley), leading specialized investment companies (for example, SAM)
and consulting agencies (for example, Oekom Research) confirm the
positive relationship between the financial results of companies and
their activities in the field of sustainable development,including
environmental and social initiatives, as well as the level of corporate
governance.
Realizing the need for project management, companies lack tools and
methods to implement the concept of sustainable development in practice.
Major changes in companies are implemented through projects and the
principles of sustainable development is one of the main scenarios for
companies seeking to ensure their stability and investment
attractiveness in the future.
Therefore, the issues raised in the article are very important and
interesting. Nevertheless, as a result of studying the article, some
questions arose that are not clearly reflected in the article:
The article does not mention the category of projects that are the
subject of the study. Projects differ in budget, timing, and certainty
of goals and methods (the Rodney-Turner Matrix of Goals and Methods).
To what extent is it possible to consider financial risk management
without specifying the subject of the study?
The authors at the beginning of the article (pp. 29-37) wrote that
the main purpose of the article is to propose an increase in the
efficiency and effectiveness of financial risk management of the project
using the sustainability approach, after which they cite the principles
of sustainable development. It is not very clear how the financial risk
management indicators of projects implement, for example, principles
such as balancing or harmonizing social, environmental and economic
interests or sustainability of personal value and ethics?
The authors write (pp.79-87, pp.232-234) that they conducted a
survey among project managers. At the same time, the respondents'
selection criteria are not indicated. The article only indicates the
classification of enterprises where the respondents came from, and the
fact that financial managers were interviewed. It is not very clear, are
we talking about financial managers of companies or projects? If there
are no projects, was the experience of project implementation taken into
account in the selection of respondents?
In general, I positively evaluate the article, and when receiving
answers to my questions, I support the publication of the article.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I wish to thank for the opportunity to review this interesting paper. The paper deals with project management, and argues that sustainability principles applied together with metrics-based management would support project financial risk management.
In Introduction section, the authors state that “We performed a literature search… with the search string ‘project AND risk AND (salaries OR wages OR salary supply OR service OR assets OR revenues) AND (change OR increase)’ relating to article titles, and no relevant items were identified.” Actually, I am not surprised. Because of the selected criteria and complexity of the search string, I would be surprised if the authors managed to get more than zero search results. If they really wanted to have results, they should make more searches with simpler search strings and including at least article abstracts.
The authors also claim that “Sets or lists of metrics… and what is striking about them is their sustainability, even if they are not explicitly described in that way.” Actually, I cannot see the connection as “striking” as the authors. They should present this connection much more clearly. I mean that the authors should try to link their research to the sustainability research more strongly throughout the paper. The paper would need a longer runway explaining why Sustainability is the right journal for this paper, and not, for example, a project management journal. Their point of view is economic sustainability, and as far as I understand, they wish to argue that environmental and social sustainability are included, too. However, the latter arguments are not very convincing. This means that their literature review should go deeper in the three pillars of sustainability. I think this would actually be rather easy to do by adding discussion from, for example, Silvius and colleagues, who have written many articles on how to implement sustainability principles in project management. In general, the reference list of the paper is rather short, as it is now, and I would suggest going through more literature on sustainability, as this would strengthen the paper a lot.
In Research method section, the authors state: “The same data were used in a different context (Kuchta & Zabor, 2022) where the research method is described more extensively.” Nice to know but they should describe the method thoroughly also in this paper.
The Results, Discussion and Conclusion sections are well-written and clear as such, but they do not counterbalance the main weakness of the paper described earlier – not adequately explaining why to concentrate on financial perspectives and not on sustainability more widely.
Minor issues:
- - Please correct the reference in text and add it to the reference list: “webpage from 2022 (https://teamstage.io/project-management-statistics/)”
- - Please correct the reference in the reference list: “A J Gilbert Silvius, Ron Schipper…”
- - Table 3 is: “Most important risk causes and examples of metrics linked to sustainability principles.” Which principles do you refer? I suppose the six principles introduced on page 1, but the reader cannot be sure, because the number formats (1. / i., 2./ii.,…) are different than on page 1.
- - please explain the (difference between) concepts of efficiency and efficacy – or omit / merge these concepts, if both of them are not needed (as I suppose).
- - there are some minor language issues, and consequently proofreading is necessary.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the authors' effort to improve the paper. After carefully reviewing your revised manuscript, I am highly satisfied with the changes that you have made, and I have no more comments to offer. I can recommend the publication of this research. I wish you well in taking your research forward.
The paper is accepted in present form.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I would like to thank for the opportunity to review the revised version of the paper. The authors have improved the paper and managed to address all my previous concerns. I do not have any further comments. Only language editing is needed.
