The Mediating Effect of Financial Literacy and the Moderating Role of Social Capital in the Relationship between Financial Inclusion and Sustainable Development in Cameroon

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you very much for the opportunity to review this article:

 

The abstract is well written.

 

The article needs proofreading. For example, in line 32, which country do you mean? Is it Cameroon? Please specify; this might confuse the reader.

 

Please specify the definition of financial literacy in the introduction section before you move to link it with other concepts. 

 

Please write the article's organization at the end of the introduction section to allow the reader to understand the whole article.

 

Please include the following recent studies in your article as they relate to the topic and will add many advantages. Most of the surveys you used are old despite the presence of new articles related to the field, such as:

 

• The Interplay of Social Influence, Financial Literacy, and Saving Behaviour among Saudi Youth and the Moderating Effect of Self-Control (2022)
• The roles of financial literacy and overconfidence in investment decisions in Saudi Arabia (2022).
• The Impact of Financial Literacy on Entrepreneurial Intention: The Mediating Role of Saving Behavior (2022).
• The moderation effect is poorly written. You need more empirical evidence to support your argument.
•  

Kindly straightforwardly explain your theory. It is unclear what the theory is about; you may use another theory to support you.

 

In lines 471-472, you mentioned that (The survey design was used in this study to collect data that would be used to test the hypothesized relationships). How can the survey design test your hypotheses? Your hypotheses will be tested with statistical tools, not research design, and the research design is the strategy used in the research. It is not a technique for testing any hypotheses; please correct it.

Please acknowledge the limitations of the convenience sample you used, as it may generate bias, so recognize this in the limitation section.

 

Please show a sample of the measures used in the study or attach the questionnaire in the appendix.

 

Figure 2 title should be changed to path coefficients.

 

HTMT for examining the discriminate validity is enough.

 

the p-value cannot be equal to zero, and it should be smaller (p-value <0.000).

 

Please report F, R, and Q squares at one table and PLS predict.

 

Discussion should never be combined with implications; please separate them.

 

I need a clear answer to one question: Why can financial inclusion be an antecedent of financial literacy? If we literate people financially, they will be easily included in the financial system, and they can start their income-generating activities, not the reverse. 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this paper. The topic is pretty interesting and contemporary. This paper examines the mediating effects of financial literacy and the moderating role of social capital on the relationship between financial inclusion and sustainable development in Cameroon using PLS-SEM software to analyse 488 data collected with an empirical investigation from the residents of Douala and Buea municipality in Cameroon. The work is within the scope of the journal; however, the following points are the concerns.

Abstract:

The abstract seems well-written. But please add the data collection method in short.

Introduction:

· Please concise your introduction section (it is too long for readers to hold their interest) and within the concise writing, please clearly present the problem statement.

· At the end, please clearly state the objective of the study.

· Also, mention the significance of this study in brief.

Theoretical foundation:

· Theoretical underpinning must come first and then the hypothesis development.

· How the theory you mentioned is relevant to this study? This is not clear.

· In Figure 1, you must not show the items. Use only the latent variable.

· Please tighten your arguments in the hypothesis development section with one more reading.

Methodology:

· Please include the “research design” in a few sentences.

· Please give more details about the data collection procedure.

· What about ethical concerns?

· Did you offer any benefits?

· Justify why did you select the convenience sampling method.

· How did you manage the non-response bias? 

· What was your sample frame?

· Do the sample representative?

· Please include the “Data analysis tools” subsection. Also, justify why did you choose PLS-SEM? Why not AMOS or others?

Result:

· In Table 4, please use a star mark (*) to indicate the level of significance (1% or 5%).

· Within lines 582-593, please use the beta sign (β) instead of writing “beta value” again and again.

· Table 5 is unnecessary. It can be merged with Table 2 or 3 or others to make the study more concise.

Discussion

· Discussion must be according to the hypothesis and its sequence.

· At the beginning of the discussion, discuss the research questions and how your study addresses the gaps or how representative is your model empirically?

· Your one hypothesis is insignificant. Explain the possible reasons for being insignificant.

Implication:

· The implication section is found within the discussion section. Please separate the discussion section from the implication.

· You must write the implication section separately with great care in the following structure:

o Theoretical implication (contribution to the theory or literature).

o Managerial Implication (Suggestions for the organization or its functionality).

o Policy Implications (Suggestions for the government or its agencies to improve policy matters or enhance sustainable development or financial inclusion)

Conclusion and limitations:

· At the beginning of the conclusion, please mention the objectives first.

· Limitations should be elaborated more.  

Appendix:

· Provide your questions in the appendix section or incorporate them in Table 1. 

Reference:

· There are some old references found. Please update your reference with the latest literature (Where possible), particularly in sections 3.1 and 3.4.

 Based on the above observation, the manuscript is publishable conditioned to the above corrections.

 

I hope this comment will not discourage you and will improve in a corrected submission. I wish you all the best!!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

the authors have addressed all my concerns. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you so much for your effort to address the concerns in the paper and upgrade to the standard. 

However, please take care of Table 2. You used 9 decimals. For other tables, you used three decimals. Please bring consistency. 

In the appendix and within the tables, somewhere use used full stop and somewhere left open. Please provide a full stop in the questionnaire statements. 

Thank you so much. And congratulations on your work. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx