It’s Just Not Sexy: How Managerial Assumptions Adversely Affect Corporate Sustainability Engagement and Sustainable Technology Adoption
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The Influence of Managerial Assumptions on Corporate Sustainability Engagement and Sustainable Technology Adoption
The paper wants to shed light onto why companies refrain from a meaningful pro-environmental engagement, undertaking a qualitative study that focusses on managerial views as hindrances of corporate sustainability engagement, and sustainable technology adoption. The author declares a mainly conceptual intent, but it does not emerge what the conceptual enrichment is with respect to the topics covered.
The cited literature is consistent, although it may be updated. The author often cites a previous study of his, in the literature review, for the definition of the research question and in support of the results obtained. It would be better to state that this study is a continuation of a line of research already started with previous studies.
Considering the numerous methodological steps, it is necessary to develop a summary scheme of both the research structuring process and the analysis process and finally, provide a table summarizing the results obtained. In reading the study, I found myself going up and down continuously because I was lost, I did not know the considerations I was reading to which phase of the interviews they referred. Paragraph headings should guide the reader in this. In addition, the findings of the three initial studies should be summarized, in order to make it clear how they produce the claims then used in the semi-structured interview.
From the abstract it is clear that the interview concerns 25 companies. Of these, 21 relate to the 3 initial studies (among other things, not all respondents participated in all 3 studies) and only 4 (to decision makers from only 2 companies) were conducted with the semi-structured interview? It is hard to understand if this is the case. Consider, for example, what is written in section 3.6: “the focus on two companies and their six representatives [6 for each company, or 6 in all?] made it also possible to interview decision makers that had very similar position and obligations. All four [but weren't they 6?] were part of the corporate sustainability strategy team and thus had experience with how the company’s sustainability plans were not only influenced by internal, and external criteria, but also with how these sustainability plans were put into action – or were not put into action, respectively. We contacted all of them and four interviewees (I-01f – I-04f) were willing to participate in a follow-up study”. So in the end, it was 4 interviews? To 2 decision makers from the energy company and 2 from the manufacturing company? This is clearly understood only in paragraph 7!
Why was it decided to reduce the research focus so much? It appears to be just a forced consequence of the poor response rate to follow-up interviews. Furthermore, this focus on two types of industry emerges neither from the title, nor from the abstract, nor from the contextualization of the research. It is not even discussed in the final part of the study to contextualize its implications.
Beyond the doubts that may emerge regarding the generalizability of the results obtained (considering the limits in the response rate, as stated in the last section), I strongly believe that the paper can offer interesting insights but that it must be decidedly improved in the description of the research phases, in order to help reading and understanding and not tire the reader. The perceived significance of the results of a study are mainly related to the interest aroused in other scholars during the reading. It is considered necessary to improve this aspect of the research.
Beware of numerous typos and English errors.
Author Response
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Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article deals with a topical issue that is very much discussed in theory and practice.
The title of the article needs to be reworded and the research sample needs to be specified in the title of the article.
The abstract of the article is very general. The abstract should contain a summarized summary of information about the article - Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions.
The authors used few available sources in the literature review. There are only 51 citations in the references and of these, a large number of sources are inactive, for example, as old as 1995. For the topic of the article, an analysis of new sources from the last 5 years is required. Also the number of 51 resources is also very few for the processed theme, as the issue is very actual.
The methodology needs to be clarified and simplified and disaggregated. The author indicates in lines 210-211 that qualitative research was preferred to quantitative research. I would be more careful with the topic of the article, because it is not quantitative research but a combination of quantitative research and qualitative research that would be more appropriate. A research sample of 21 respondents within one country is not credible. If the author wanted to carry out only qualitative research, he should have carried it out in neighbouring countries or selected countries so that the results could be compared and the future direction of the issue could be determined. The research presented is just a description without any added value. The research does not include any graph or statistical tests, verified or falsified the research questions and hypotheses.
The Conclusion, Limitations, Further Research and Final Remarks section of the article cannot be in one section. It is cluttered. This section lacks the international context of the article. It also lacks mentioning other similar researches and studies that have been conducted on this topic. Also, this part of the article does not talk about the future direction of the issue. In its present form, it is just statements based on 21 interviews.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Overall evaluation: This study visually presents the influence of managerial assumptions on corporate sustainability engagement and sustainable technology adoption. The conclusions of this study are quite interesting and can provide references for the sustainability development of corporates. However, some points need to be clarified and the writing needs to be improved further. Here are some of my concerns.
1、 Abstract: Why sustainability was perceived as unattractive and un-innovative? Author should give a proper explanation.
2、 Keywords: It is recommended that the author should replace the word “sustainability” with “sustainability engagement” and “sustainable technology”, and add “managerial assumptions”.
3、 In general, it is better to have a brief and more effective/structured introduction and mention the most important issues related to the research; Line 105~111 should be put in the conclusions part; Please summarize the shortcomings of the previous studies.
4、 Line177~188 can combine into one paragraph.
5、 What are the different findings of Study I~III? Author should explain it in detail.
6、 Table headings should be placed above the table.
7、 Grammatical errors need to be corrected in the manuscript.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The topic is very relevant today. The methodology helped answer some important questions about corporate social responsibility.
The report needs thorough editing to clean up typos and sentence structure.
The weakest part of the report is at the end. The last section on Conclusions… mentioned the study’s importance to practitioners but reads more like a summary of the study. Please add a sub-section better addressing specific recommendations to practitioners based on the study’s results.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revision effort made has greatly improved the readability and understanding of the study. I believe that the addition of summary tables and diagrams supports the reader sufficiently. I would only suggest anticipating the implications paragraph before limitations and future research that generally concludes a paper.
In addition to English proofreading, beware of copy and paste, typing and redundancy errors.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have tried to incorporate the reviewer's comments, but they could have made the article clearer or put the extensive tables in the appendix of the article.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Thank authors for their revisions. I agree with the publication.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
Good job improving the report. I would drop the “It’s just not sexy –“ from the title.
Author Response
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