Development of Stakeholder Engagement Strategies to Improve Sustainable Construction Implementation Based on Lean Construction Principles in Indonesia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
The article is undoubtedly relevant and reflects the understanding of stakeholder engagement and lean construction principles.
Overall, the manuscript is well written, and I recommend that the paper need minor revision:
To help you improve your paper, I listed a few suggestions below.
1. Introduction: The novelty of the article requires to be strengthened in the introductory section.
2. Literature Review: This section requires a more comprehensive comparison with previous studies.
3. Another important problem in the research methods is the choice of potential respondents, and requires further explanation about the response rate. A small sample size can easily lead to biased results or generality issues of the findings.
4. Conclusion: The contributions should be more highlighted. Also, the limitations of this work need more explanation.
5. I recommend the authors add a section/ subsection discussing the limitations of the conducted study with more details and the issues that should be addressed in future research based on the current study's findings.
Kind Regards
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
The topic you are addressing in your paper is relevant, but there are numerous studies published with the same conclusions as yours. The only dissimilarity is that your survey was undertaken in Indonesia, which alone does not qualify as a scientific contribution. This does not mean that your results don't have a certain value but rather that they have not contributed to the body of knowledge. Perhaps a serious comparison with previous similar research based on the relevant and recent literature review would help to state your contribution and put it in its proper context explicitly.
Kind regards
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper can be substantially shortened. If it is about stakeholder management, then the descriptive infrastructure part is not required in the first 2 pages. The boring reference to the role of construction in the economy is also not required.
Substantial editing is required, e.g. line 32, "determine" is inappropriate. Lines 33, 34 is also valid in developed countries and should be deleted. Line 40, "high" is inappropriate. Perhaps rapid, substantial, or large. These types of errors pepper the paper.
Lines 68-74 are misleading. Don't assume poor stakeholders as passive and uninterested. They resist, but usually not through open mass resistance where they are likely to fail. They will test the boundary, look for ways to make small adjustments, spread rumors, drag their feet on land acquisition, write to the press or on social media, see their political MPs, etc.
I find it hard to figure out Table 1. In the left column, if the heading is "criteria", the word should not appear again in the cells below. See also Lines 111-8 where "criteria" appears in every line.
Now take the land use criteria. The "drivers" are efficiency and reduced impact on flora and fauna. The "barrier" is increased project cost. The "strategy" is efficient regulation and urban planning. I find it hard to relate them to sustainable construction. (BTW: Since contractors aim to maximize profit, the word "lean" is unnecessary.) What are "stakeholders' factors"? A stakeholder is a person, group or organization. They don't have "factors" "driving" anything.
My main point, then, is that you need to construct a proper narrative. To build a sustainable road, you need to manage stakeholders who may support or oppose your plans. For example, if you need to acquire land, those adversely affected will oppose. It can't be managed by the empty line called "effective regulation and urban planning".
In Table 4, I am not sure who is the "investor." Further, the lender is missing, as are the social groups such as affected residents, businesses, and road users.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
There are a few instances where more clarification is needed, specifically when reporting the results of the questionnaires. See comments in paper.
The tenses in the English language are sometimes past tense and sometimes future tense. Standardise the tenses.
Why is the use of PERT presented as if it is a novel approach?.
Please explain how CER is calculated. There is no discussion, explanation, definition of where the "desired" values in Table 6 come from, neither the C, D, CD in Table 7.
Explain the basis for the categories in Table 12.
What is a "central contractor"?
A few senetences were marked for not making sense. Kindly rephrase.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I understand your standpoint, but your answer and changes proved my argument: firstly, you answered that you "... believe that this paper can help stakeholders in the decision-making process to improve the implementation of sustainable construction through the application of lean construction". Well, without any proof and analytical comparison to previous studies, as I suggested, hope and belief are the only ones left. Among others, the scientific uncertainty of your results is obvious in the revised version of the paper in the part where you discretely categorized priority levels of strategies upon their fuzzy scores. This made you conclude that TQM has a major priority with a 0,397 score, while the development of standardized measurement of stakeholders' needs, interests, and understanding of the implementation of sustainable lean construction is categorized with a moderate priority. The difference between those two is 0,003. With the limitation, you stated, "the small sample size" such an approach is unreliable.
I'm sorry to say, but I still do not see scientific novelty publishing worthy.
Kind regards
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Paper has addressed my suggestions.
Author Response
We are very grateful for the time and effort you took to review our manuscript. We are also very grateful for approving the changes and revisions we have made according to your feedback.
Kind regards
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for acknowledging my suggestions and taking the time to address them. Well, the comparison you added was missing in the previous versions of the paper and provided a valuable reflection of your results from the previous studies. As I stated earlier, the problem was not with the methodology or topic; the problem was the contribution. Now I can agree that you provided an adequate contribution. There is still the question of the discrete categorization of the strategies' priorities based on fuzzy scores, which I leave to the editors to decide whether you should address this issue.
Kind regards
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
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