Factors Affecting Occupants’ Satisfaction in Governmental Buildings: The Case of the Kingdom of Bahrain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Introduction:
- The first two paragraphs are irrelevant and it should be removed
- Authors argue that most POE studies have been conducted in residential building which is not quite right. There may be a shortage of studies in governmental buildings but the largest POE survey tools have been collecting data from commercial buildings around the globe - please refer to POR led by CBE (US), BUS (UK), BOSSA (AUS) and Lessman (US), just to cite a few. This needs to be reframed within the introduction.
- Finally, and most importantly, the introduction fails greatly in actually talking about previous research and key gaps about the topics of the paper: IEQ in government buildings. Are the types of work performed by government workers any different from other knowledge workers" are the types of workplaces any difference from other non-governmental offices? Please clearly state the contribution of this paper and its aims.
Methodology:
- Authors need to rewrite the methodology providing detailed explanation about the POE questionnaire itself, sample sizes and profile, information about the buildings where the study was conducted, recruitment strategy, etc.
- Authors also say:
"Kim and de Dear [53], who used POE questionnaire to assess evaluate satisfaction for 120 more than 1,000 buildings around the world. " This is incorrect. Authors analysed the CBE POE database, they not deploy the POEs themselves.
Results:
- Overall, results need to be trimmed down to reduce the amount of text simply reporting on previous research. This session needs to focus on results and discussion from the papers not a literature review of the topic.
Overall 145 references are listed in this document but one one refers to studies in governmental buildings.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript titled 'Factors Affecting Occupants’ Satisfaction in Governmental 2 Buildings: The Case of the Kingdom of Bahrain' investigated the satisfaction level among working staffs inside the Bahrin's building. The study was distinctly performed on gender basis, and several interesting outcomes came out from the study. However, the number of participants is not sufficient to make generalized perceptions.
These preliminary studies might be helpful for ongoing related research.
Few doubts and suggestions for authors:
> What was the range of the scale for qualitative study?
> Write author's name if your discussion paragraphs need support from published articles. For example, Line number 270: Mention García-Mainar et al. [94].
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for your efforts in revising the manuscript. Additional review is needed for the following:
- Intro: Although these studies are very important, most of them were 52 conducted on office buildings in general without distinguishing between governmental 53 and private buildings; or in other words, without differentiating between the satisfaction 54 of private and governmental occupants (employees) despite the different nature of work, 55 services provided, and methods of interaction with the clients in these types of offices. " That's not accurate, other papers have focused on industry-specific sectors, including the POEs listed by the authors. There are also papers in the field focusing on layout-specific differences - see work by Candido et al and others. Further, this paper does not provide any information re the physical configuration of the space other than very basic information re the physical layout where the research was conducted so the focus is IEQ so reframe this passage.
- Point 6 of cover letter: Please clearly indicate which parts of the results session were revised so it can be checked. Highlighting the document should be enough at this stage.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please check our responses to your points below.
Many thanks and best regards,
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Point 1: Intro: Although these studies are very important, most of them were 52 conducted on office buildings in general without distinguishing between governmental 53 and private buildings; or in other words, without differentiating between the satisfaction 54 of private and governmental occupants (employees) despite the different nature of work, 55 services provided, and methods of interaction with the clients in these types of offices. " That's not accurate, other papers have focused on industry-specific sectors, including the POEs listed by the authors. There are also papers in the field focusing on layout-specific differences - see work by Candido et al and others. Further, this paper does not provide any information re the physical configuration of the space other than very basic information re the physical layout where the research was conducted so the focus is IEQ so reframe this passage.
Response 1: Thank you for your comment…This point was reframed to focus on IEQ rather as you requested (Highlighted in Page 2)
Point 2: Point 6 of cover letter: Please clearly indicate which parts of the results session were revised so it can be checked. Highlighting the document should be enough at this stage.
Response 2: Thank you for your comment… As you requested earlier, we tried to trim as much as we could from the results. We highlighted the parts where the trimming happened.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Only one request that is to remove the following sentence: "Regarding the psychological explanation, von 256 Arb, et al. [85] asserted “Stereotypic feminine gender socialization may play an important 257 determinant for anger suppression, which subsequently can lead to thermal discomfort 258 from cold extremities and prolonged sleep onset latency”.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your comment...The sentence was removed from Page 8
Best regards,
