Increasing the Personal Development of White-Collar Employees for Sustainable Employability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors need to revised the paper content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background.

 

It is necessary to clearly justify the purpose, need and significance of the paper in introduction section.

 

Please clearly deliberate on the research questions and research gaps of the study

 

Please provide research design, sample design, research hypotheses and methods more clearly in methodology.

 

The references are limited and seems older. Please update and synthesise with most recent papers.

 

The implications for society, businesses and practitioners should be clearly stated

 

The conclusion sections need more clarity about the contribution of the paper

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The study has some merits for publication in the journal, but it also has some problems which needs to be addressed: 

1.Introduction: more background information should be given, including the research on white-collar employees, and the working condition in the examined context. 

2.Literature review: a critique about the past studies should be done in order to lay a foundation for the conduction of the current one. 

3.Materials: why ABC company is chosen? Does this company have any specialty which merits in-depth research? The coding process is vaguely described. Authors are suggested to draw a flow chart to show the complete coding process involved. 

4.Results: can authors draw a figure which sums up the whole result before presenting each one? Thus, readers can have a panaramic view toward the findings. 

5.Discussion: if all findings are supported by previous studies, what is the contribution of this one? Meanwhile, I sense authors merely write down the results once again in this section without a clear and meaningful discussion toward the findings. Finally, authors need to sum up their theoretical and managerial contributions to the investigated field. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The study deals with an interesting phenomenon, that of the personal development of white-collar workers for sustainable employability

It is a relevant subject, necessary to be analyzed in the current economic context.

Although it uses an appropriate methodology, the conclusions are built only on the results obtained by evaluating the 8 employees of the ABC company.

I encourage the authors to expand the sample (the number of subjects and companies), so that the results are solidly grounded.

Best regards,

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

• The manuscript is a very interesting and novel approach to the critical issue of sustainable employability, using a qualitative method.
• More specifically, this paper is scientifically sound, and the research design is valid.
• The ethics statement is adequate.
• The references are relevant.
• The paper fits the scope of the journal.
• The significance of the paper is high enough.
• The quality of the paper is good enough, as it has been written appropriately.
• Scientific soundness is also adequate.
• This manuscript will be interesting for the readers.
• The overall merit is positive, the publication will bring about benefits in knowledge.
• Page 4 lines 183-188: Authors may justify the lack of “not many” studies on the topic by referencing certain ones.
• Page 5: Authors ought to report the total number of white-collar employees of ABC company that consists the “population” of the (qualitative) research.
• Page 6: Authors should report more details regarding how they construct of find the “questionnaire” they used.

Two more points: a) Pare 3, line 135:  there is an extra “r” in the text; b) Page 14, line 505:  there are two double words “the participants”

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have revised the paper with suggested changes. Hence, it can be considered for further perusal

Author Response

Dear Editors and Referees,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions for our paper.  

Your sincerely

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall, authors have made some improvements regarding the manuscript, but some more efforts are needed. 

The newly added contents are suggested to have a round of language editing as it has some language problems. 

Authors are suggested to add a thorough critique about the past studies (literature) to lay a foundation for the conduction of the current study. 

I still suggest authors to give a definition or theme exploration before giving the coded results of each theme. More citations and references are needed to support the generation of each theme. 

Discussion should be put in the first section of conclusion, followed by contribution. 

The newly added contents are suggested to have a round of language editing as it has some language problems. 

Author Response

Dear Referee,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions for our paper.  You can find details about the parts we revised below. We hope that these changes have improved the paper to your satisfaction. We look forward to receiving your comments.

Yours sincerely,

 

Your Suggestions and Comments

1. The newly added contents should have a round of language editing as there are some language problems. 
2. The authors should add a thorough critique about past studies (literature) to lay a foundation for conducting the current study. 
3. I still suggest authors to give a definition or theme exploration before presenting the coded results of each theme. More citations and references are needed to support the generation of each theme. 
4. The discussion should be put in the first section of conclusion, followed by the study’s contribution. 

What we did….

1. The paper was edited again by an English language editing service.
2. We added another citation about past studies [43], which lays a foundation for conducting the current study. Please see page 4, lines 196-198.
3. We explained the themes and coded results according to the participants’ responses and added one citation to support the coding [citation 42]. Please see page 9, line 356-384.
4. We moved the discussion to the first section of the conclusion, followed by the study’s contribution.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

I agree with the changes and arguments made by the authors.

Best regards,

Author Response

Dear Editors and Referees,

Thank you for your valuable suggestions for our paper.

Sİncerely

 

Authors

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.doc