Does Corporate Social Responsibility Fuel Firm Performance? Evidence from the Asian Automotive Sector
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
The paper does not have a consistent theoretical framework to address the paper's objectives. It considers CSR, but only a descriptive comparative study is seen in the sample that appears in different countries. The sectors of activity such as tourism or hotels are not comparable with the study in the automotive sector.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your meticulous review and for the comments to improve the readability of the manuscript. the review comment and the response is given below:
The paper does not have a consistent theoretical framework to address the paper's objectives. It considers CSR, but only a descriptive comparative study is seen in the sample that appears in different countries. The sectors of activity such as tourism or hotels are not comparable with the study in the automotive sector.
Revised the Theoretical framework in introduction section to include justification for automobile sector
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
This study explores on the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on business performance in the automobile sector. Although the topic of this research study is interesting and fits within the journal's scope, I think the authors should apply the comments indicated below to increase the quality of the research justification, contributions, and findings.
What practical/professional and academic consequences will this study have for the future of scientific literature (theoretical contributions)?
Why is this study necessary? Again, the authors should make clear arguments to explain what is the originality and value of the effects of CSR on business performance in the automobile sector. This should be stated in the final paragraphs of the introduction and conclusion sections.
In the first and second paragraphs of the introduction, the authors expressed an intention to understand the profile of CSR, business performance, social performance, environmental performance, and governance performance. Also, bear in mind that contexts matter a lot unless contextual factor is taken into consideration.
Variables are not enough sufficiently supported or clearly explained. So I advise authors to propose some suitable assumptions for models following some literature review, which can make readers very clear about the source and basis of your assumptions.
The discussion needs to be a coherent and cohesive set of arguments that take us beyond this study in particular and help us see the relevance of what the authors have proposed. The authors need to contextualize the findings in the literature and need to be explicit about the added value of your study towards that literature. Also, other studies should be cited to increase the theoretical background of each of the methods used. Findings should be contextualized in the literature and should be explicit about the added value of the study towards the literature. The contribution and implications of the article are yet to be specified. Please refer the style, DOI: 10.1051/ro/2021187 or 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132635
Author Response
Author is really thankful to the anonymous reviewer for giving detailed and insightful review comments. The review comments and the corresponding revisions made are given below:
This study explores on the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on business performance in the automobile sector. Although the topic of this research study is interesting and fits within the journal's scope, I think the authors should apply the comments indicated below to increase the quality of the research justification, contributions, and findings.
- What practical/professional and academic consequences will this study have for the future of scientific literature (theoretical contributions)?
Included in the conclusion section
- Why is this study necessary? Again, the authors should make clear arguments to explain what is the originality and value of the effects of CSR on business performance in the automobile sector. This should be stated in the final paragraphs of the introduction and conclusion sections.
Added in introduction and conclusion
- In the first and second paragraphs of the introduction, the authors expressed an intention to understand the profile of CSR, business performance, social performance, environmental performance, and governance performance. Also, bear in mind that contexts matter a lot unless contextual factor is taken into consideration.
Age and size of the firm are also considered in the study. Description included in the introduction section
- Variables are not enough sufficiently supported or clearly explained. So, I advise authors to propose some suitable assumptions for models following some literature review, which can make readers very clear about the source and basis of your assumptions.
Done
- The discussion needs to be a coherent and cohesive set of arguments that take us beyond this study in particular and help us see the relevance of what the authors have proposed. The authors need to contextualize the findings in the literature and need to be explicit about the added value of your study towards that literature. Also, other studies should be cited to increase the theoretical background of each of the methods used. Findings should be contextualized in the literature and should be explicit about the added value of the study towards the literature. The contribution and implications of the article are yet to be specified. Please refer the style, DOI: 10.1051/ro/2021187 or 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132635
Revised the discussion section by incorporating the contribution of the study. Findings in the literature are contextualized in the conclusion section
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
I don't understand what the yellow signs mean. They should be explained or removed.
I find the literature review rather incomplete. There are many studies on the relationship between CSR and performance, and it would be important to present this in a structured way. But the relationship between CSR and the automotive industry should also be addressed.
E.g.: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042118 https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215972
It would also be important to identify limitations and future research directions.
Author Response
Thank you very much for the anonymous review. This has really helped the author to improve the manuscript. The revisions made as per the reviewer comments are given below:
- I don't understand what the yellow signs mean. They should be explained or removed.
Removed the yellow background
- I find the literature review rather incomplete. There are many studies on the relationship between CSR and performance, and it would be important to present this in a structured way. But the relationship between CSR and the automotive industry should also be addressed. E.g.: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042118 https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215972
Revised the literature review and Cited the references given
- It would also be important to identify limitations and future research directions.
Included in the last part of the conclusion section
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The authors have improved their work considerably, in my opinion it is acceptable in this form.
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
1. No research model is available in this paper. How is the research model developed? Please prepare a clear literature review and finally develop your research model.
2. Sampling is not clearly discussed, such as sampling technique and data collection process.
3. Discussion section needs to be clearly discussed. A poor discussion for this section.
4. Contributions (Theoritical, managerial and practical) needs to be clearly discussed.
5. Limitation of the research?
6. Future research?
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is not recommended for publication.
The topic itself would be interesting, but the content of the article does not support the original research question.
The content of the chapters - in this form - does not meet the requirements of a scientific article.
Reviewer 3 Report
First of all, I would like to thank the authors for the opportunity of reading and commenting their work. The topic raised here is interesting and emergent in the literature, but some gaps remain unexplored.
The abstract presents some discussion emphasizing the environmental branch of sustainability, notwithstanding, I believe that this is a narrow perspective and the paper should embrace a broader view. In my opinion, economic sustainability plays an equally important role.
Also, the abstract does not contain the expected elements, mentioning what can the reader expect from the paper. As such, it must be changed.
The introduction does not contextualize the problematic with the sources of literature and it is very shallow. As a recent reference using the same database, and a similar topic, I suggest : Costa, J.; Fonseca, J.P. The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovative Strategies on Financial Performance. Risks 2022, 10, 103. https://doi.org/10.3390/risks10050103
There is a need to justify every single detail in the empirical part of the literature review, and also, why is it important to study this sector and not others? Please consider a strong reformulation of this section - it is vague and does not build the foundations for the empirical part.
The time frame is not clarified, nor is the type of panel in use, also, no reference is made to the sample collection, is it exhaustive? which countries are considered? What are the criteria? The automotive sector has plenty of sub-sectors inside the value chain - it is of use to enlighten the reader about the NACE codes considered.
What is the underlying reasoning for the variables in the equation? - justification is needed.
I do not understand why the author mentions 97 firms and then table 2 presents 252 observations. The explanation in line 169 is unsatisfactory.
The estimations do not encompass random and fixed effects as well as the results of the Hausman test to discuss the nature of the estimators.
The results are not well described as well as interpreted in line of the research question.
Conclusions must provide a clear identification of the contribution of the paper in both the theoretical and the empirical domains. Also, there is no debate about the value of the present analysis, the policy recommendations, and the future gaps to be explored.
I feel that this version is still embryonic and needs a strong investment in its improvement.
Best of luck!
Also, the present findings are not compared to previous research. - this needs to be redone
Reviewer 4 Report
The author has carefully revised the previous version, and this version has been greatly improved. However, I think it is necessary to ask the author to revise. I believe that the author has done a lot of research and work, but I think the method to test the hypothesis is not rigorous enough.
I can't tell the difference between 6.2 Regression Analysis and 6.3 Generalized Least Square (GLS). The author said in 5.1 that GLS method is used in this paper. What is the difference between 6.2 and 6.3? I don't think the author has a clear statement. If it is just to deal with heteroscedasticity, conventional methods will only affect the variance and have no obvious impact on the coefficient size. However, we can find that the coefficients of these two tables have changed significantly, and the author can compare them through relevant tests. The sign of a variable coefficient is also reversed.
When I mentioned conservatism in the last opinion, it actually has multiple meanings. If it is only heteroscedasticity, it is completely possible to perform only robust standard error based on Bootstrap. How to view the query that the result of this paper may be just an accident rather than a robust conclusion? We should at least make some model setting robust, and at least replace the control variables. However, how to deal with endogenous problems and possible sample non randomness in the paper? This article can at least discuss the problem of sample selection.
This article has two 6.3, Generalized Least Square (GLS) followed by 6.3 Robust Analysis. This article has two 6 section, 6. Results and Discussions followed by 6. Practical and theoretical Implications of Findings.
