Corporate Social Responsibility and Customer Loyalty in Food Chains—Mediating Role of Customer Satisfaction and Corporate Reputation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The strengths of the article is original and interesting considerations with is consistent with the pattern of research. Solid methodology of the research with statistical analysis.

Therefore contribution to existing knowledge is considerable. Also advantage of the research is perfect organization & readability.

I cannot find the weaknesses of the assessed article.

Model article worthy of imitation.

In generally it is excellent article and very interesting considerations, which is consistent with the pattern of research. A very good review article with the analysis of statistics on the topic under study.

Overall evaluation: article it is suitable for publication in current version.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your evaluation!

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is well done, but small adjustments still need to be made for publication.

In the abstract and in section 4.2., the authors should present the period in which the data were collected (the study was performed).

The authors should place more emphasis on one of the most important negative externalities generated by restaurants, namely food waste. In this sense, the results of similar studies published in Sustainability could be presented, which enjoy the appreciation of colleagues from different countries.

Falasconi, L., Vittuari, M., Politano, A., & Segrè, A. (2015). Food waste in school catering: an Italian case study. Sustainability, 7(11), 14745-14760.

Göbel, C., Langen, N., Blumenthal, A., Teitscheid, P., & Ritter, G. (2015). Cutting food waste through cooperation along the food supply chain. Sustainability, 7(2), 1429-1445.

Kymäläinen, T., Seisto, A., & Malila, R. (2021). Generation Z Food Waste, Diet and Consumption Habits: A Finnish Social Design Study with Future Consumers. Sustainability, 13(4), 2124.

Section 6 Discussions and Conclusions could be split into two and made into two sections - a discussion section and a conclusions section.

The references are listed in chronological order, and if they are from the same year, in alphabetical order

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestions and evaluation, we have revise the paper according to your suggestions, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility and customer loyalty in food chains and the mediating role of customer satisfaction and corporate reputation. Even with reference to much studied topics in the literature, such as the one covered by the paper, there is always a potential for in-depth and advancement of knowledge, which may concern conceptual implications or managerial implications.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the paper does not express this potential and does not add much new knowledge to the existing literature, so I have a strong doubt as to its suitability for publication, at least in this initial version.

Let me explain my concerns in details.

In detail, I found in the article only an empirical verification of relationships already known in literature and already studied in many operational contexts by way of example and confirmation.

I don’t think it could be enough to identify a new empirical context (as regards the sector of activity, the food chains; as regards the territorial context, Pakistan) if the results of the survey confirm knowledge, theoretical and conceptual issues already known, as in the case of this paper.

In fact, all hypotheses formulated are verified simply because they repeat knowledge we already have and already verified, even empirically, in previous studies.

Furthermore, the choice to investigate the relationship between CSR and customer loyalty in the specific sector of food chains is never argued on the basis of the sectorial specificities and elements of differentiation with respect to the business already studied in the literature, such as airlines, hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, supermarkets and so on. Similarly, the choice to investigate the relationship between CSR and customer loyalty in a specific country such as Pakistan is never argued on the basis of the cultural, economic, and social specificities of it.

In other words, "Pakistan" and "Food chains" are just two “name” (of a country and of a sector of activity), but nothing more, with the result that the study carried out represent just a numerical exercise (through the use of Pls-Sem) which could be replicated in the same way in any country and in any sector of activity, without producing any interesting advance on previous knowledge.

In conclusion, to address the abovementioned concerns, my suggestions for improving the paper are:

• the overall conceptual architecture of the article, the theoretical foundations and the scope of the study should be improved;
• the assumptions should be new and interesting, focusing on meaningful predictions rather than on the knowledge we already possessed;
• analyze the relationship between CSR and customer loyalty, as well as the mediating role of customer satisfaction and corporate reputation, in the specific sector of food chains; in other words, identify the specific elements of the food chains that could influence these relationships; likewise, identify Pakistan’s cultural, economic or social specific factors that could influence these relationships.

I hope you find my comments and suggestions to be helpful in order to improve the paper.

Thanks again for the opportunity to read this paper and good luck with your research.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your comments and suggestions, we have addressed all the modifications as you suggested, please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciated the changes made to the card and I think this version has definitely improved over the previous one.

 

Author Response

Dear Editor,

Thank you very much for the valuable feedback and for suggesting the minor revisions. The suggestions/recommendations have been incorporated into the article and briefly presented below:

1. All the references have been cited in sequential numerical e.g., [1], [2, 3], [4–6]. Further, the reference list has been updated accordingly.
2. A section on "author contribution" has been added.
3. A section on "Funding" has also been added.
4. The authorship change form is also being attached.

You are requested to kindly process the article.

Kind Regard,