Developing a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy in India Using the SA 8000 Standard
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
please find below dome comments that I hope help you to improve your paper:
- Introduction is very long, quite vague and lacks precise description of research gap.
- I suggest to shorten the Introduction so that it it is more precise. In fact I like the idea from conclusion to position the paper in line with the discussion on how developing countries are perceived as business parners.
- The Literature review should be also divided into 2 parts: 1. on the general motives towards introducing SA certification and the Indian context for developing CSR strategies.
- After readig your paper I'm not convinced that your provided qulitative case study. What I miss is description of documentation analysis regarding the SA certification, reports, interviews with the managers/employees involved, etc.
- It looks like you provided 6x 1 hour interviews (not very long for qualitative reserch), reviewd webpages and social media and asked for completing survey.
- In the survey you have lots of closed questions, and you show this in the tables as if it were the crucial informations for the case study.
- In my opinion you fail in showing the value of your research, because you try to report them as if you were describing quantitative research (info in tables). Try to provide some deeper explainations or confront your findings with other studies. Right now it seems your study repeats the foundings of previous research. Please try to distinguish yours by qualitative discussion and reflection
- I miss deeper reflection and setting this into context (industry, region, culture, etc).
- Line 64 there is one reference in different format that the other citations.
Best regards
Author Response
Dear Editor, dear Reviewers,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise our paper and resubmit it to Sustainability.
We would also thank the Reviewers for their time and effort in reviewing our paper.
We have tried to follow in detail all the relevant comments made by the reviewers. Below are the specific answers to each comment.
We hope that this new version of our paper would better satisfy your requests.
Best regards,
The Authors.
REVIEWER’S 1 COMMENTS
Comment 1:
Introduction is very long, quite vague and lacks precise description of research gap.
Response 1:
Thank you for this comment. We have tried to better describe what is the gap that the study wants to cover in the introduction section.
Comment 2:
I suggest to shorten the Introduction so that it it is more precise. In fact, I like the idea from conclusion to position the paper in line with the discussion on how developing countries are perceived as business parners.
Response 2:
Thank you for this precious suggestion. We have shortened the introduction section and better focused some issues in the literature review section.
Comment 3:
The Literature review should be also divided into 2 parts: 1. on the general motives towards introducing SA certification and the Indian context for developing CSR strategies.
Response 3:
Thank you again for your comment. As suggested we have divided, in the literature review section, the part concerning the Indian context (putting it as first paragraph of the section, as suggested by Reviewer 3, to better underline the motivations that led to consider India as reference market), from the part concerning SA 8000 certification, developing a paragraph focused only on managing SA 8000 in India.
Comment 4:
After reading your paper I'm not convinced that your provided qualitative case study. What I miss is description of documentation analysis regarding the SA certification, reports, interviews with the managers/employees involved, etc.
Response 4:
Thank you for this comments that permitted us to better explain the methodology used for this study. We have not provided a typical case study research, but “a mix method based on an embedded design procedure, that is qualitative and quantitative data are included to answer research questions (Caracelli and Greene, 1993; Yin, 2017). Qualitative data deriving from a multiple case-study have been included within a quantitative methodology, developing an experimental design as suggested by Creswell and Clark (2007)”. What is more we have not decided to include employees, but to focus the study on managers, since the aim was to consider the CSR strategy developed.
Comment 5:
It looks like you provided 6x 1 hour interviews (not very long for qualitative reserch), reviewd webpages and social media and asked for completing survey.
Response 5:
The interviews were integrated with the data collected in the surveys. As said in the previous comment the methodology used is not that of a typical qualitative research but it uses a mix method.
Comment 6:
In the survey you have lots of closed questions, and you show this in the tables as if it were the crucial informations for the case study.
Response 6:
Thank you for this comment; yes of course the information in tables are important considering the mix method used. This information was collected through the survey, but also through the interviews and they were summarized in tables in order to schematize them and make the contents of the study summarized clearly. However, as suggested, we have tried in this revision to provide some deeper explanations deriving from interviews. Please see the parts in red in the Results and Discussion section.
Comment 7:
In my opinion you fail in showing the value of your research, because you try to report them as if you were describing quantitative research (info in tables). Try to provide some deeper explainations or confront your findings with other studies. Right now it seems your study repeats the foundings of previous research. Please try to distinguish yours by qualitative discussion and reflection.
Response 7:
Thank you for this relevant comment. Since we used a quali-quantitative method, tables have been important sometimes to represents the results of the surveys, but other times to summarize also the information obtained from the interviews. Following your suggestions, we have now tried to deeper explain the comments made to the tables, to underlines more qualitative aspects revealed from interviews. We have also tried to compare our findings with previous research and reflects on the results obtained. Please see the parts in red for improvements in the Results and Discussion section.
Comment 8:
I miss deeper reflection and setting this into context (industry, region, culture, etc).
Response 8:
Improving the Results and Discussion section we have also tried to set the results into the Indian industry context and culture. Please see the parts in red for improvements in the Results and Discussion section.
Comment 9:
Line 64 there is one reference in different format that the other citations.
Response 9:
Thank you, we have eliminated this misprint.
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is very well written and documented. Congratulations. I would just suggest to make some reference to the SDGs in relation with the CSR.
Author Response
Dear Editor, dear Reviewers,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise our paper and resubmit it to Sustainability.
We would also thank the Reviewers for their time and effort in reviewing our paper.
We have tried to follow in detail all the relevant comments made by the reviewers. Below are the specific answers to each comment.
We hope that this new version of our paper would better satisfy your requests.
Best regards,
The Authors.
REVIEWER’S 2 COMMENTS
Comment 1:
The article is very well written and documented. Congratulations. I would just suggest to make some reference to the SDGs in relation with the CSR.
Response 1:
First of all, we would like to thank you very much for appreciating our article. Following your precious suggestion, we have added a reference to Sustainable Development Goals in relation to CSR in the introduction section.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper entitled "Developing a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy through the use of SA 8000 Standard. The Case of Textile Companies in India" is focused on understanding how the Social Accountability 8000 standard is managed by developing countries (using an example of Indian certified companies) through analyzing motivations and benefits that prompted them to certification and barriers for its implementation. The paper is lengthy and based on a vast body of research literature. It employs a qualitative multiple case-study with 6 Indian companies. Overall, the paper is quite interesting and reads well, however there are some methodological issues and problems with presentation. Please see my comments below:
1) The title is too long, can it be shortened? Not everyone knows what a SA 8000 Standard actually is (it should be clearly explained in the Introduction).
2) It should be clearly explained why the Indian companies were selected. Some short explanation is provided at the end of Section 1, but more background explanation on the situation in India in general and on the selected sector in particular is needed. Perhaps you need to move sub-section 2.2 Reference market: CSR in India into the Introduction?
3) In sub-section 3.1 it should be better explained how the companies were recruited? Was it a snowball sampling? Is the sample really enough to yield reliable results?
4) Table 1 should be formatted or shortened.
5) The Conclusions should not repeat what the research was about. It should summarize and list the main outcomes and own suggestions.
6) The paper needs an extensive English proofreading. There are not just minor flaws in English but some serious issues with punctuation, for example: "The aim of this paper is to understand how the Social Accountability 8000 standard, is managed by developing countries, focusing on..." - why commas before and after "is managed by developing countries"? In addition, there are many spaces within the text and other issues with grammar.
7) The References should be formatted as per journal's guidelines. Currently, the style and doi differ for many sources.
Author Response
Dear Editor, dear Reviewers,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise our paper and resubmit it to Sustainability.
We would also thank the Reviewers for their time and effort in reviewing our paper.
We have tried to follow in detail all the relevant comments made by the reviewers. Below are the specific answers to each comment.
We hope that this new version of our paper would better satisfy your requests.
Best regards,
The Authors.
REVIEWER’S 3 COMMENTS
Comment 1:
The paper entitled "Developing a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy through the use of SA 8000 Standard. The Case of Textile Companies in India" is focused on understanding how the Social Accountability 8000 standard is managed by developing countries (using an example of Indian certified companies) through analyzing motivations and benefits that prompted them to certification and barriers for its implementation. The paper is lengthy and based on a vast body of research literature. It employs a qualitative multiple case-study with 6 Indian companies. Overall, the paper is quite interesting and reads well, however there are some methodological issues and problems with presentation. Please see my comments below.
Response 1:
Thank you very much for your time and effort in reviewing our paper. We have tried to follow as close as possible your precious suggestions, in order to improve the quality of the research.
Comment 2:
The title is too long; can it be shortened? Not everyone knows what a SA 8000 Standard actually is (it should be clearly explained in the Introduction).
Response 2:
Thank you for this suggestion. We have changed the title in “Developing a Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy in India using the SA 8000 Standard”.
As for the explanation of SA 8000 standard, we think that this is well described in the introduction section: “The International SA 8000 standard, is considered to be a multi-stakeholder standard and the member groups include not only businesses, but also certified bodies, non-governmental organizations, academia and trade unions [15-17]. Developed in 1997 by the American non-profit organization for human rights "Social Accountability International" (SAI), SA 8000 deals with issues related to human rights in the workplace including child exploitation, forced labor, discrimination, health and safety of workers, freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, disciplinary practices, timetables and remuneration [18]. In addition to national laws, its guiding principles are the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Organization (UN), including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Comment 3:
It should be clearly explained why the Indian companies were selected. Some short explanation is provided at the end of Section 1, but more background explanation on the situation in India in general and on the selected sector in particular is needed. Perhaps you need to move sub-section 2.2 Reference market: CSR in India into the Introduction?
Response 3:
It is true that it would be important to better explain why Indian companies where selected. Therefore, to try to follow your suggestion, keeping in mind also the suggestion of Reviewer 1 that asked us to shorten the introduction, we decided to put a reference in the introduction section where it is underlined how the literature review section would better explain the motivations that lead to choose Indian companies as reference sample for this study. What is more we have decided to put first, in the literature section the reference to the Indian context and to the motivations that led to choose India as a reference market, and then we have introduced SA 8000 certification in the world and in detail in India.
Comment 4:
In sub-section 3.1 it should be better explained how the companies were recruited? Was it a snowball sampling? Is the sample really enough to yield reliable results?
Response 4:
Thank you for your comment. In the methodology section we have tried to better explain how companies were recruited, the sampling methodology used (it was not a snowball sampling) and the reliability of the sample: “Companies from this well-defined sample have been selected using a simple random sampling procedure, e-mailing them and asking for availability to participate to the research. A total number of 6 companies participated; the decision to examine all 6 cases respects the lines proposed by Yin [50] according to which the number of units to be analyzed in order to obtain reliable results is between four and twelve: with less than four it is difficult to build a structured theory, while too many cases make data analysis complicated.”
Comment 5:
Table 1 should be formatted r shortened.
Response 5:
Following your suggestion, we have reformatted and compacted Table 1.
Comment 6:
The Conclusions should not repeat what the research was about. It should summarize and list the main outcomes and own suggestions.
Response 6:
Thank you for this precious comment. We have deleted in the conclusion section all the parts that repeated the results, leaving only the main outcomes and implications.
Comment 7:
The paper needs an extensive English proofreading. There are not just minor flaws in English but some serious issues with punctuation, for example: "The aim of this paper is to understand how the Social Accountability 8000 standard, is managed by developing countries, focusing on..." - why commas before and after "is managed by developing countries"? In addition, there are many spaces within the text and other issues with grammar.
Response 7:
Thank you for the suggestion. An extensive language proofreading has been done, thanks to the help also of a native English speaker.
Comment 8:
The References should be formatted as per journal's guidelines. Currently, the style and doi differ for many sources.
Response 8:
Thank you for this comment. We have tried to follow Journal’s guidelines as close as possible. We have abbreviated Journals’name, taking into consideration the journal’s note “If you are not sure how to abbreviate a particular journal title, please leave the entire title. The Editorial Office will abbreviate those journal titles appropriately.”, we have formatted the DOI style for all the sources for which a DOI has been found and also the style of authors’ name. We hope that now it would be in line with what Sustainability requires.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for providing changes to your manuscript. Now I can better understand the nature of dada you were gathering. Anyway for your future studies, I reccomend to base your research not on interaction with one single person answers. Please note, that you are describing your findings by reffering to company understanding (eg. "Business 1 is the only participant to have considered as indifferent to the possibility of having a competitive advantage".) In fact you asked one person and present the one single answer as the notion of the whole business). Maybe you can consider to rewrite the narrative, so to stay align with the subject of your research. Additionally you could also a bit more in deep explain the background of your respondents, so that the reader understand better, why you assume that the answers of one sigle person are really relevant as the understanding of the whole company.
I wish you good luck for your future research!
Author Response
Notes on the revision of the manuscript ID sustainability-770061
Dear Editor, Dear Reviewers,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise again our paper and resubmit it to Sustainability. Adhering to your relevant recommendations, we have revised our manuscript by considering each comment. You can find the new improvements in text in a blue font.
We hope that you will find the enclosed version of the paper improved and suitable for publication in your journal. Thank you very much for your efforts regarding our submission.
The Authors
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER 1’S COMMENTS
Comment:
thank you for providing changes to your manuscript. Now I can better understand the nature of dada you were gathering. Anyway for your future studies, I reccomend to base your research not on interaction with one single person answers. Please note, that you are describing your findings by reffering to company understanding (eg. "Business 1 is the only participant to have considered as indifferent to the possibility of having a competitive advantage".) In fact you asked one person and present the one single answer as the notion of the whole business). Maybe you can consider to rewrite the narrative, so to stay align with the subject of your research. Additionally you could also a bit more in deep explain the background of your respondents, so that the reader understand better, why you assume that the answers of one sigle person are really relevant as the understanding of the whole company.
Response:
Following your precious suggestion, we decided to better explain the figure interviewed for each company in order to make the reader better understand why the interview could be considered representative for the whole company. In detail we added: “The semi-structured interviews typically lasted 1 h, and were based on an interview protocol: companies were asked to be available to carry out interviews with the person who had the responsibility for developing their CSR strategy and for the implementation of the SA 8000 standard, in order to have the most representative view on the topic for the company. Therefore, for Business 1, the CSR manager was interviewed, for Businesses 3, 4 and 5 their Chief Executive Officers, while Businesses 2 and 6 declared that they did not have a specific figure for this role and that this responsibility was managed by the owner of the company, so they were interviewed.”
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been modified and ameliorated. I can see that most of my comments and suggestion were taken on board and dealt with. Overall, the paper looks better now but some small issues remain:
1) In section 3 (Methodology) there is still information missing on the data collection: how the companies were recruited? was it a random sampling (and if not, why)? what were the selection procedures?
2) The paper needs proofreading. Even though it was stated by the authors that the paper was proofread by the English native speaker, there are many flaws throughout the text: e.g. "Stakeholders are those who benefits..." (instead of "benefit"), or "The same is stated by Sartor et al. [21], that define the academic literature on SA 8000 still limited" (no comma before "the" and "as" is missing).
3) All abbreviations should be explained (US, SA 8000, etc.).
Author Response
Notes on the revision of the manuscript ID sustainability-770061
Dear Editor, Dear Reviewers,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise again our paper and resubmit it to Sustainability. Adhering to your relevant recommendations, we have revised our manuscript by considering each comment. You can find the new improvements in text in a blue font.
We hope that you will find the enclosed version of the paper improved and suitable for publication in your journal. Thank you very much for your efforts regarding our submission.
The Authors
RESPONSE TO REVIEWER 3’S COMMENTS
Comment 1:
The paper has been modified and ameliorated. I can see that most of my comments and suggestion were taken on board and dealt with. Overall, the paper looks better now but some small issues remain:
Response 1:
Thank you for considering the paper ameliorated. We have tried to follow as close as possible your comments in order to better improve the paper.
Comment 2:
1) In section 3 (Methodology) there is still information missing on the data collection: how the companies were recruited? was it a random sampling (and if not, why)? what were the selection procedures?
Response 2:
The data you ask for are all written in par. 3.1 Data collection, lines 319-326 state: “As of March 15, 2018, in India, there were 437 certified companies in the textile sector. It was possible to obtain all the information needed to find the companies from the database on the website of the Social Accountability Accreditation Services [19]. Companies from this well-defined sample have been selected using a simple random sampling procedure, searching for their email contact online, since this public list does not include the organisation's contact information. Subsequently, we have e-mailed companies for which a contact has been found, asking them for availability to participate to the research. A total number of 6 companies participated; the decision to examine all 6 cases respects the lines proposed by Yin [53] according to which the number of units to be analyzed in order to obtain reliable results is between four and twelve: with less than four it is difficult to build a structured theory, while too many cases make data analysis complicated.”
Comment 3:
2) The paper needs proofreading. Even though it was stated by the authors that the paper was proofread by the English native speaker, there are many flaws throughout the text: e.g. "Stakeholders are those who benefits..." (instead of "benefit"), or "The same is stated by Sartor et al. [21], that define the academic literature on SA 8000 still limited" (no comma before "the" and "as" is missing).
Response 3:
As for the proofreading, we said in the previous response that we asked a native English speaker to work on the paper, but it was implied that it was an authorized proofreader and we paid for the service. Therefore, we are very sorry for this inconvenience. We again asked for a text check, hoping that they may have fixed the remaining typos. If there are still small things left, I hope they will be corrected by the Journal in the editing phase.
Comment 4:
3) All abbreviations should be explained (US, SA 8000, etc.).
Response 4:
Thank you for this comment. We have explained the United States (US) abbreviation (line 52), and as for SA 8000 it was already explained the first time it appears in text (line 74), but it was not explained in the abstract, therefore we did it (line 11).
