New Trends in Consumption in Poland as Shown by the Example of a Freeshop Concept

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

1. Through reviewing more prior studies or theories, please try to provide more logical rationale to establish stronger hypothesis. It seems that two hypotheses the authors provided are still very weak to be developed.

 

2. Theoretical background is still insufficient. Try to develop justification of this study providing why this study is needed academically.

 

3. What is the implication of this study? I cannot still find clear and insightful implication (neither academic nor practical).

 

Overall, two sections of theoretical background and impliction in conclusion are still insufficient. Please try to develop these parts stronger.

Author Response

Dear Sir or Madame,

Thank you for your very valuable comments which made our paper much better. Your effort helped us to develop our work and look at the freeshop phenomenon from a different angle as well. This motivates us to research and explore this topic further in future researches, especially in pro-environmental context.

The time ahead is seen by many people as a period of change. The socio-economic environment is turbulent and unsettled. For geopolitical reasons, this is felt especially here in Poland. We can proudly boast that the main idea of freeshop has been applied, among other things, to help refugees, allowing them to choose the help (items) they need.

In addition, studies of Polish youth and young adults point to a different perception of the world - it seems that this generation is becoming dominated by 'to be' rather than 'to have'. This is peculiar to our situation - since World War II, subsequent generations have largely functioned under conditions of scarcity, the fear of which is strongly ingrained in us.

As this (free-shops) is a new trend, it has not been studied in literature in a sufficient degree (e.g., how customers perceive this segment and what influences their decisions to use free-shop services). Turbulent periods are also conducive to positive change. We strongly believe, that the overlap between global difficulties and the attitudes of our youth is a premise to the development of a culture of sharing. 

Please see the attachment.

 

Best regards,

Authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Dear Authors,

I appreciate your efforts in improving the article.
I accept it in the present form.

Regards,

Author Response

Dear Sir or Madame,

Thank you for your very valuable comments which made our paper much better. Your effort helped us to develop our work and look at the freeshop phenomenon from a different angle as well. This motivates us to research and explore this topic further in future researches, especially in pro-environmental context.

 

best regards,

 

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Thank you for responding to my comments. I think that the authors have done a nice job revising this paper. 

One minor suggestion I would like to make is that the authors could add more recent literature examining the impact of "environmental protection". That's because their research has been tested in the context of a circular economy using freeshop example. With the suggested revision to strengthen your theoretical contribution, I believe this paper would be able to address any conceptual aspect of how your study broadens the scope of previous research on sustainability in public service. Also, you should better explain why did you use Poland's example.

 

Author Response

Dear Sir or Madame,

Thank you for your very valuable comments which made our paper much better. Your effort helped us to develop our work and look at the freeshop phenomenon from a different angle as well. This motivates us to research and explore this topic further in future researches, especially in pro-environmental context.

The time ahead is seen by many people as a period of change. The socio-economic environment is turbulent and unsettled. For geopolitical reasons, this is felt especially here in Poland. We can proudly boast that the main idea of freeshop has been applied, among other things, to help refugees, allowing them to choose the help (items) they need.

In addition, studies of Polish youth and young adults point to a different perception of the world - it seems that this generation is becoming dominated by 'to be' rather than 'to have'. This is peculiar to our situation - since World War II, subsequent generations have largely functioned under conditions of scarcity, the fear of which is strongly ingrained in us.

As this (free-shops) is a new trend, it has not been studied in literature in a sufficient degree (e.g., how customers perceive this segment and what influences their decisions to use free-shop services). Turbulent periods are also conducive to positive change. We strongly believe, that the overlap between global difficulties and the attitudes of our youth is a premise to the development of a culture of sharing. 

 

Please see the attachment

best regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Thank you for your great effort to develop and improve your study.

I think now, it looks very good and is time to publish. Please do check typo, minor spells, and reference.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Unfortunately, I regret to say that it has not improved much over than previous submission.

Introduction

Through the introduction section, the study should justify why this study should be performed. However, it is difficult to convince the readers.

I do not understand why hypotheses is introduced in the introduction section. They should be developed by very strong theoretical background based on prior studies. However, there was nothing on them. I think it is not a good idea to provide hypothesis in this way.

Theoretical background

The theoretical background section is still very insufficient. The authors just explained the definitions of concepts used in this study. It seems that only a very small number of previous literatures were referenced. With this theoretical background, this study is very difficult to prove why this study is needed academically. In order to complete this paper, the authors reviewed just less than 10 academic articles. The number of references in this study is too small.

Materials and method

It is very difficult to understand what affinity analysis is and how the data were analyzed with it. The authors should explain process of the analysis in much more detail. For example, reliability, validity, and so on. In general, there are some more required steps you need to take before main analysis.

How did you measure the variables when you took a survey? (No measurement items were showed). If authors have them, please indicate where they were derived from as well.

Result

It seems that this study targeted university students to collect data. Why did you use student sample? Can the result generalize real society? Try to explain this issue to your readers.

Who was your real target? Who joined the survey? Please provide demographic information of participants.

As I mentioned above, for people who do not know about affinity analysis, it might not easy to understand and interpret the result of this study.

In addition to those mentioned above, many things still need to be improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I appreciate your efforts in improving the article and including my content-related remarks. However it still needs minor improvement. 

In the introduction you should describe the structure of your manuscript.

There is a chaos in the numeration of your references in the text. You should start with [1] line 57, not [3] and follow this rule.

Please explain in the section 3, why you decided to do research among students?

In the "Discussion" section, the authors should compare and contrast the similarity/dissimilarity of findings in this research to the findings of other studies. This way, the authors can argue how this study stands among related studies, convincing readers of the originality or confirmatory values of this study toward the literature.

There is no conclusion part. 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Q1. Literature review insufficient. It is worth referring to the theory and the criteria on which the tools were based.

 

Q2. You need to find a way to increase the connectivity of your research, not the general explanation of existing research.

 

Q3. In this paper, it is hard to find the connection between literature review and Methodology. Have to justify your methodology.

 

Q4. The key elements of the paper are tied substantially. However, validation with your findings as well as uniqueness from global findings should be discussed.

 

Q5. You have to have more contributions(e.g., theoretical, professional so on). It is not clear to find out your contributions.