Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance, Platform Governance, and Value Creation of Platform Enterprises

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have stated that ESG is a three-dimensional coordinate system, including E, S, G three dimensions. [1-3]. In China, ESG is still a relatively new concept. Compared with foreign countries, China's ESG disclosure time is relatively late, the disclosure of enterprises is relatively small and the disclosure system is not very perfect.

 

I don’t particular agree with this comment as many companies listed on the stock exchange market are require publishing an annual ESG report.

 

The authors’ information is not being placed in the right place on page 1. Please fix this issue and follow the journal format.

 

“In order to solve the above problems, this article will do the following expansion.:Firstly, the research object of this paper is platform enterprises, which explores the platform as a relatively special type of enterprise under the background of sharing economy, which is somewhat different from the traditional research object of corporate social responsibility, and expands the research boundaries related to the ESG performance of enterprises and financial performance. Second, this paper divides platform enterprises into platform enterprises of different sizes, different natures and different types to study the heterogeneity of the relationship between the two. Third, this paper introduces the moderating variable media attention, aiming to investigate the relationship between media attention and both. Fourth, This paper finds two platform governance paths of the relationship between the two, namely, platform reputation governance path and platform  data governance path. This paper aims to help platform enterprise ESG to carry out, provide relevant reference for government ESG governance, and support the healthy development of platform economy.”

 

This paragraph seemed to be unnecessary and poorly written. Please consider removing from the manuscript.

 

Section 2 shows the different hypotheses of this study. However, it does not show a null hypothesis or alternative hypothesis, which is very important for this kind of study. If the p-value is below the 95% confidence interval, it must reject the null hypothesis.

 

Section 4 presents the result of this study, but it is not very clear what it implies. For example, “It can be observed that the minimum value of the explanatory variable platform enterprise ESG is 0.569, and the maximum value is 0.852, indicating that there is a significant gap in the ESG performance of platform enterprises.”. Is this value presented being the p-value?

 

Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics, but it is not very clear what does it mean.

 

Table 9 shows the regression results, but the correlation coefficient (R) or coefficient of determination (R2) is not presented.

 

Section 6 shows the discussion of the results, but the conclusion section is clearly missing in this work, which is unacceptable.

 

The English writing in this work is poor and need to be thoroughly revised. The structure of this paper is a poor and need to be fixed. Some of the in-text citation format is incorrect and need to be fixed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English writing in this work is poor and need to be thoroughly revised. Please double check the grammar and spelling throughout the text.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, this study has high theoretical significance and practical value, with clear research questions, solid theoretical foundation, appropriate research methods, standardized results, and the conclusions are relatively reliable. There are still several issues to be further improved.

1. This study has propose the moderating effects of media attention and the mediating effects of platform reputation governance and platform data governance, but didn't go deeper into whether media attention moderates the relationship between ESG and platform reputation governance (external intermediary role) or the relationship between ESG and platform data governance (internal intermediary role). Media attention provides an external pressure, maybe it will moderate the external mediating effect? Furthermore, will media attention moderate the two mediating effects (moderated mediation effect)? These are not necessary analysis, but will bring more theoretical insights.

2. It should be reported what's the time point of the measurements of each variable and whether there is a time lag between the dependent variable and independent variable, to support the causality of the effects.

3. In the Policy Recommendations, it will be better to provide one or two suggestions from the perspective of the government and  policy makers.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

First of all, I would like to congratulate you for your work. Below you can find my suggestions for further improvement.

1. The introduction and literature review sections provide a comprehensive overview of the relevant theories and prior studies, effectively setting the stage for the current research. The paper clearly identifies gaps in the existing literature and positions its contributions within the broader academic discourse on ESG performance and platform enterprises. However, I would incorporate more recent studies and theoretical perspectives to ensure a comprehensive coverage of the latest developments in ESG performance and platform enterprises. Additionally, a more explicit linkage between the current study's objectives and the identified gaps in the literature could further clarify the research's unique contributions. Providing a more detailed critique of the limitations in existing research would also strengthen the theoretical foundation.

2. I believe that a clearer rationale for the for the chosen research design and methods, explicitly linking them to the research questions and hypotheses must be provided.

3. Include in the article a more detailed descriptions of the variables and how they are measured

4. I would provide a step-by-step explanation of the analytical procedures to enhance transparency and replicability.

5. I would also provide a more in-depth analysis and interpretation of unexpected or non-significant findings

6. Also comparing the results more extensively with findings from other relevant studies to highlight the study's unique contributions would improve the article a lot and providing more detailed explanations of the statistical outputs to ensure clarity for readers unfamiliar with advanced statistical techniques.

7. Provide more information about the data sources, including how the data was collected, its reliability, and any potential biases. If the data comes from a specific database, describe the database in more detail and explain why specific methods and analytical techniques were chosen over others. Justify the selection of variables, sample size, and any inclusion or exclusion criteria.

8. Clearly define all variables and how they were measured. For complex indices or constructs, such as ESG performance, provide a detailed breakdown of components and scoring mechanisms and include more information on robustness checks or alternative methods used to confirm the results. Describe any sensitivity analyses, additional tests, or different model specifications to show the robustness of findings.

9. All in all, I believe that it needs a step by step explanation of the research process, from data collection through to analysis. This helps in understanding and replicating the study. Discuss potential limitations or biases in the methodology, such as sample selection biases, measurement errors, or any assumptions made in the analysis. Explain how these were mitigated or their impact on the study’s findings.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Although there are some improvements to this version of the manuscript, the novelty of this work remained to be low. The null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis was not clearly stated in this work and the limitation of the study is also missing, so my opinion has remained the same. I am sorry that this work cannot be accepted for publication. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It appears that the authors did answered most of my comments, however I am still not fully convinced regarding the findings and the methodology, so it's up to the editor's view