Crisis and Organizational Sustainability: Empirical Analysis of the Implication of Transformational Leadership on the Decision to Stay Mediated by the Commitment of the Democratic Party in Indonesia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Right at the beginning it should be made clear to the international readership which The Democratic Party we are talking about. In principle, the article could gain additional relevance if the findings were also focussed on international politics. At the end of the introduction, a short paragraph should be added explaining what the reader can expect on the following pages - i.e. how the article is structured.

The combination of literature review and the presentation of theoretical approaches (in particular the Theory of Planned Behaviour) is not successful. The author should decide how much space should be given to the theoretical approach. This decision is also relevant for the later discussion of the results. These have an influence on the TPB, so it would be advisable to cite the theory as a separate chapter and not to present it under the misleading term "literature review". The literature analysis is clearly too short at this point and actually only comprises the sub-chapter Previous Studies. If a new research model is presented, more than one line of the description should be devoted to it. It would be nice if the author's ulterior motives were briefly formulated so that the reader has an anchor for the following chapters (these lead later to Figure 2). 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to express my sincere gratitude for your thorough and insightful review of our manuscript. Your detailed feedback has been invaluable in refining and enhancing the quality of the paper.

Enclosed within this document, you will find my responses and revisions addressing each of your comments and suggestions. I have organized the response in a manner that directly correlates with your feedback, providing detailed explanations and highlighting the specific changes made to the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the opener (lines 27ff.), one can read about “strong leadership”, which I find too unspecific. Also, political parties per se are not necessarily a manifestation of a democratically governed country. Rather, the institutionalization of parties (and party systems) promote structurization of party systems and, eventually, contribute to responsible partisan government (accountability).

 The relationship between transformational and transactional is primarily empirical when it comes to political regime attributes: starting with Burns and Blondel, transactional leadership appears compatible with democratic routine politics while transformational leadership is bound to non-democracy (with the exception of crisis scenarios) : not surprisingly, as democracy based on egalitarian and universalistic principles is at odds with the notion of large-scale societal influence exerted by an individual through personality/charisma. Somewhat correspondingly, I find it important to shed more light on the leadership effects associated with party leaders other than net influence upon individual vote choice in public elections in a variety of settings ranging from consolidated liberal democracy over forms of illiberal democracies to hybrid regimes.

Two literature remarks: The article would profit from (a) a look into the work of Arjen Boin and Paul 't Hart on intra-party crisis leadership and (b) into May`s law on curvilinear disparity.

This research article operates on a solid theoretical foundation, conceptual clarity (ie. on dimensions of charismatic leadership) and understanding of the many levels of principal agent relations involved in the process under scrutiny (exemplified in the display of table 1). Likewise, the methodology applied, and its execution are useful, the interpretation of results sound. The disruptive nature of the court ruling and theorizing of the leadership management process in dealing with it are neither described nor theorized sufficiently, however. In addition, I would plea for caution in attributing (equating) results of perception of a party leader by party followers to the very nature of the person himself (see page 10); this must be altered.   

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Language requires some editting. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to express my sincere gratitude for your thorough and insightful review of our manuscript. Your detailed feedback has been invaluable in refining and enhancing the quality of the paper.

Enclosed within this document, you will find my responses and revisions addressing each of your comments and suggestions. I have organized the response in a manner that directly correlates with your feedback, providing detailed explanations and highlighting the specific changes made to the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf