The Influence of Commitment to Change and Change-Related Behaviour among Academics of Malaysian-Islamic Higher Learning Institutions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors 

I appreciated reviewing the paper. Overall it is well structured and addresses an interesting and relevant topic.

Some suggestions to improve it are:

Provide more details on the specific items or questions used to measure commitment to change and change-related behavior. This would allow readers to understand the constructs more comprehensively.

Describe the method used to select the three Islamic universities from which the respondents were recruited. This helps in understanding how the institutions were chosen and ensures transparency in the research process.

Include a brief statement about obtaining ethical clearance or approval, as research involving human participants typically requires ethical consideration.

Include Effect Sizes: While the t-statistics and p-values are provided, it would be beneficial to include effect sizes (e.g., R-squared values) to quantify the strength of the relationships between commitment to change and change-related behavior.

 

To complement the tabular presentation, consider including visual aids such as path diagrams or graphs.

Kind regards,

 

Author Response

Thank you for the review. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article meets the requirements for a scientific article. The theoretical part describes the theoretical model of the study, explains the practical assumptions that led to the choice of the research topic. The data analysis of the empirical research follows from the theoretical justification, logically structured. The discussion links the initial theoretical assumptions with the results of the empirical study. We believe that the title of the article could be slightly improved. Not the level but the influence of Commitment to Change on Change-Related Behavior was studied.

Author Response

Thank you for the feedback. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for your submission entitled “The Level of Commitment to Change and Change-Related Behaviour Among Academics of Malaysian Islamic Higher Learning Institutions.” This paper aims to determine the link between the academics’ level of commitment to change and change-related behavior in selected Islamic higher learning institutions in Malaysia. This is an exciting and well-conceived study of important constructs, i.e., commitment to change and change-related behavior. The authors used the data collected from 103 respondents. The authors found that academics’ level of affective commitment to change influences cooperation and championing, while continuance commitment to change only influenced compliance. Normative commitment to change only has an influence on cooperation. Although the paper focuses on essential concepts and their relationship, a few concerns deserve attention. I list here to offer some suggestions for improving the manuscript.

Please justify the need for the study in the introduction. The authors should focus more on addressing what we already know about the topic before bringing in a gap, considering what the paper tries to fill in. This would make it clear to the reader why it is crucial to address the shortcomings in the literature.

 Please add the significance of the study in the introduction section. 

The literature review is unsatisfactory; hence, more works seem necessary to bring it up to date. 

Please add the theoretical perspective to explain the association and build arguments among study variables.

Can you describe how participants were recruited? More information on questionnaire design, sampling technique, and sample size selection is needed. Participants and procedures should need to elaborate in more detail.

Describe any possible biases or limitations associated with the gathering of data and analysis. Discuss any potential sources of bias, such as self-reporting bias or sampling bias, and explain how these limitations might affect the interpretation and generalization of the findings.

Please add the Appendix (Instrument mentioned in the measure section) as a main part of the document

It is important to perform post hoc tests for the justification of the actual sample?

Please justify why smart PLS software is best to investigate the study paths instead of other techniques like AMOS and MPlus.

Please check the data normality, multicollinearity, and autocorrelations.

Please add the CFA for all the study variables, and compare the measurement model with the alternate models. 

Please mention that convergent and discriminant validity among variables.

 

The discussion part is underdeveloped. In particular, the discussion needs to be more thorough and linked to your literature review.

I suggest the authors add theoretical and managerial implications after the discussion section.

Please incorporate recent and more context-related articles related to variables.

The author must edit the English language slightly to ensure lucidity and fluency.

I want my recommendations to help the authors improve their work. I hope the authors will benefit from these suggestions and make the necessary amendments to strengthen the manuscript for later submission.

The author must edit the English language slightly to ensure lucidity and fluency.

Author Response

Thank you for the constructive feedback. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors, 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review your paper. It has potential but has to be improved. Please see my further comments:

- It is not clear why the focus is just on Islamic universities. This point has to be justified. Why should Islamic universities be different from the others?

- The literature is quite limited. These are a large number of studies in the field. A part from Sustainability publications see also the International Journal of Sustainability in higher education for improving the literature review section and the introduction. Please see just as example: the numerous articles from Leal Filho Walter

 

- To integrate the literature review will help you in defining the gap that is unclear at the moment

- P2 § 77-86: organization change at universities cannot be compared with the same in companies. Delete this part and insert adequate literature on this issue.

- it is not clear why in the abstract you referred to "selected" Islamic universities

- IR4.0 please specify what this is

- It is not clear how Malaysian universities should reach the requested blueprint

- Hypotesys should be embedded in the literature and not a list at the end.

- Because changes at universities are often steered by employees, it is not clear why you have collected the survey just on academics. This is a limitation that should be mentioned both in the method and conclusions of the paper.

Discussion and conclusions are completely missing. Discussion should be embedded in the discourse of the previous literature: what is new in your study? what is your contribution compared with previous studies?

 

- Finally, where is sustainability in this paper?

 

The level of English is fine

Author Response

Thank you for the constructive feedback. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The topic of the article regarding the level of commitment to change and the behavior related to change in academic staff in higher education institutions is important.

The research hypotheses are clearly formulated.

 

Authors should pay attention to following aspects:

1. The technical editing criteria of the article are not respected. The authors must be numbered, in the order of appearance in the article.

2. The research objectives must be mentioned before the research methodology.

3. The research methodology is briefly elaborated. The following subtopics must be established: participants, research method, procedure, data analysis.

4. The discussion section must be developed separately. It is necessary to elaborate discussions to correlate the results of the research with the data of current studies.

5. The research results are analyzed very simply, without using complex statistical tests.

6. Bibliographic references must be corrected according to the style of the journal.

Author Response

Thank you for your constructive feedback. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Author, 

it is quite unfair declare to have followed the reviewer's suggestions when you didn't. In my opinion, the paper is not publishable at the stage of development.

Here my comments:

- the justification for the use of Islamic universities is arbitrary and not suffcient

- When I suggested you the reading of Leal Filho, it was just a suggestion for improving the literature review and not just a request to add references,

- The literature must be improved

- the gap you are filling consequently is not clear

- Universities and corporation have different factors that influence the organisational change. These 2 kind of organizations cannot be compared.

- Hypotheses are not a consequence of the literature

- discussion is not discussing the results according to previous studies on universities.

 

The Quality of English is fine. There are just some typos

Author Response

Thank you for the constructive comments. Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

The author slightly changes the paper from the previous version. I confirm the comments given on the two previous round of review.

English is fine