The Impact of Sustainability Reporting on Financial Performance: Evidence from Turkish FBT and TCL Sectors
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
RESUME:In my opinion, the article needs to improve the following aspects:
Rewrite keywords to remove compound words and reduce them. Define the main objective of the work in the introduction clearly and establish some secondary objectives.
BROAD AND SPECIFIC COMMENTS.
The key words must be reduced to three or four and try to ensure that they are not all compound.
In the introduction, you must identify the main objective of the work, which is presumed in the title and summary and which should be, to analyze the impact of sustainability reports on financial performance, but you must explain it a little in the introduction.
With respect to the sample, it would be necessary to explain why 192 companies were taken, it can be assumed, but it must be said why those specifically were taken and why they were from those sectors.
In the figures and tables you must indicate the authorship and the source of preparation.
Perhaps the sample under study should be explained, since it is not made very clear.
It would be convenient to include more international jcr bibliography.
Otherwise the work is quite good, so congratulations to the authors for their originality. The work provides Turkey with the possibility of incorporating sustainability reports within some financial statement and does so from the perspective of profitability for the companies analyzed, a point that seems quite attractive and useful to analyze.Finally, it would be convenient to add more international jcr bibliography.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We thank the esteemed reviewer for the attention and time devoted to our article. Below are the results of correcting the article in accordance with the reviewer's comments:
1. Keywords were reduced.
2. The purpose of the article was specified by adding auxiliary objectives.
3. The text of the paper gives the number of companies that were studied and why they were taken from the total number of companies.
3. An explanation of the reason why FBT and TCL sectors were chosen for the study was added to the text of the article.
4. Authorship and source of preparation were added to figures and tables.
5. Five relevant bibliographic sources on the research topic have been added to the text of the article.
Reviewer 2 Report
Conducting research on the impact of sustainability reporting on financial performance in the Turkish Food, Beverage, and Tobacco (FBT) and Textile, Clothing, and Leather (TCL) sectors requires a systematic approach. I have suggestions as follows.
1. Introduction:
Define Your Research Objectives: Clearly define the research objectives. What specific aspects of sustainability reporting and financial performance do you want to investigate? Are you looking for a causal relationship or correlation?
Also, provide more informative and underpinning reasons on the why this research focuses on the impact of sustainability reporting on financial performance in the Turkish Food, Beverage, and Tobacco (FBT) and Textile, Clothing, and Leather (TCL) sectors
2. Literature Review: Please add this section.
Review existing literature to understand the current state of knowledge in this area. Identify gaps in the literature that your research can fill.
3. After literature review, Hypothesis Development should be presented.
Based on your research objectives and literature review, develop hypotheses about the relationship between sustainability reporting and financial performance in these sectors. For example, you might hypothesize that companies with more comprehensive sustainability reporting have better financial performance.
4. Sample Selection: Please ensure that your sample is representative of the Turkish FBT and TCL sectors. Random sampling or stratified sampling can be used to select companies for analysis.
5. Data Presentation: Please present your findings in a clear and organized manner using tables, charts, and statistical tests. Interpret the results and discuss their implications.
6. Conclusion and Discussion: please summarize your findings and relate them back to your research objectives. Discuss the implications of your results for the Turkish FBT and TCL sectors and for sustainability reporting practices more broadly.
Particularly, the discussion section is weak. There were also research limitation and future research in the discussion section. Please consider rewrite them.
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
We thank the esteemed reviewer for the attention and time devoted to our article. Below are the results of correcting the article in accordance with the reviewer's comments:
1. The goals of the study were specified with additional sub-goals and added to the text of the article. The justification of the reason for choosing FBT and TCL sectors as the subject of the study was added to the text of the article.
2. The Literature Review section was added to the text of the article, and 5 more relevant publications on the research topic were added to this section. An explanation of the gaps in the literature filled by this study is added to the text of the article at the end of the chapter.
3. The research hypothesis was added to the text of the article, and the results of its disconfirmation were added to the conclusions.
4. As for the sample, it included all public Turkish companies from the FBT and TCL sectors that published sustainability reports. That is, all possible enterprises from these sectors for which such information is available were analyzed.
5. The conclusions and generalizations of the article are presented with the help of a conceptual scheme (figure), and tables, and confirmed by the results of the application of statistical tests.
6. The conclusions of the article were adjusted in accordance with the main and auxiliary research objectives. Recommendations for improving the procedure for generating sustainable development reporting for Turkish enterprises have also been adjusted.
7. The Discussion section was strengthened by adding confirmations / disconfirmations of the authors' conclusions, whose works were added to the Literature Review section.
Reviewer 3 Report
A very interesting and serious topic.
An abstract is well presented by summarizing all important aspects of the study. You stated some implications of this study, but this is not fully convincing to me. In fact, the entire theoretical justification is not convincing. How reporting on something affects that something. Please state about this! The UN spent a lot of money on these endeavors, and it is not working. And we all see it, but not so many stating it. Please consider this as my acceptance of your results, and they are in line with the fact that the reporting efforts do not work in many places. Just highlight the reasons, justify the problem, and highlight the implications! Yes, you wrote something in the findings, discussion, and results, but it must be highlighted since this is the major issue here). In fact, the first responsibility in the sustainability concept is economic responsibility. Thus, please justify and elaborate on practical implications with full recommendations.
Please revise the structure. The introduction is about the introduction to the problem, while the literature review section should be given to clarify the existing research views about the topic. Thus, the part of the existing text in the introduction can be used for the literature review. This can start from the page 3.
In the materials and methods, I cannot see how many participants were included (only general statements from the ISE). Elaborate on when this study was conducted, and which period covered. For used variables, you presented them well as well as the model. In the discussion, you discussed your results that are opposing some other findings. Can you discuss why this can be?
Author Response
We thank the esteemed reviewer for paying attention to our article. Below are the results of adjusting the text of the article in accordance with the reviewer's comments:
1. The conclusions of the article included recommendations on improving the practice of forming sustainable development reporting for Turkish enterprises and emphasized the lack of effective impact of sustainable development practices on financial condition indicators, as well as revealed the practical consequences of the lack of such an impact for enterprises.
2. The Literature Review section was added to the text of the article, and 5 more relevant publications on the research topic were added to this section.
3. As for the sample, it included all public Turkish companies from the FBT and TCL sectors (48 companies in 2022) that published sustainability reports. That is, all possible enterprises from these sectors for which such information is available for the year 2022 were analyzed since this is only the first year in which Turkish enterprises are obliged to disclose such information.
