Organizational Strategies and Their Impact on Employee Commitment during the Health Emergency

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read the submitted manuscript to Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). I hope to provide valuable and helpful comments to enable the authors to improve their research and detailed reporting.

After a thorough reading, I have some comments about the submission and the author's work. For the sake of brevity, my observations were written in the PDF version and positioned in the places I was most doubtful about. Therefore, I include the comments I made in the PDF article throughout the present text highlighting the lines where they were inserted.

I ask the authors to, please, pay attention to the remarks. My suggestions intend to give some clues to improve their work.

My suggestions are made towards the points that authors should improve to boost the quality of the paper and are essential for the manuscript:

1. Theme framework in the manuscript
2. Scope & Depth
3. Clarity and Focus
4. Discussion and Conclusions Accuracy

• (1 and 2) The manuscript in question tackles an unprecedented problem caused by COVID-19 in terms of scale and social, economic, and environmental implications and enhance the importance of sharp and lean communication in corporations. Research on corporate communications – the strategic use of public language to influence stakeholders – has flourished in recent years, but the COVID-19 pandemic highlights some shortcomings in corporate communication research. The work is based on an interesting literature review, and the methodology approach is valid, with suitable tools to achieve and enlighten the hypothesis validity. Addressing Corporate Responsibility, Crisis Management, Best Practices, and Corporation Responsibility, this work's Scope fit into the Sustainability. Nevertheless,
• (2) I would have liked to see the authors present a problem and research question(s).
• (2) The conclusions and implications of this research need to be nuanced due to a methodological limitation: the authors have aggregated small, medium, and large enterprises in the analysis of the surveys. The corporate environment is different, and the way how the information/communication flows is also different. It would have been wise to analyze the situation that the authors approach separately and then conclude. And not generalizing.
• (3) There are spelling errors that should be corrected (Lanes 46, 118, 162, 204). Would you please make an accurate review of the entire text?
• (3) On page 9, and regarding the model presented in Figure 2, I make the following comment:

It is wise to add a previous explanation of Figure 2. Something like:

"The model presented below in Figure 2 was generated using IBM SPSS AMOS v25 and illustrates the model used in this work. The structural model allowed us to understand that the model explains 0.84 of the workers' commitment. Since the maximum is 1, we can conclude that this model effectively explains the role of Organizational communication as regards COVID and Organizational ideology in the behaviour and commitment of workers."

Moreover, it will be nice to have in the legend of Figure 2.  the following: "Figure 2. Structural Model" and not "Figure 2. Source: The authors", as it is.

A last remark to the authors: Whenever there is a figure, graph or table developed by researchers and resulting from primary data obtained from the research, the authors shouldn't add in the final of the respective legend the following: (Source: the authors). It is a work of its own, and this information is redundant. A source origin explanation should only be added when the figure or table has an origin other than the authors' work.

• (3) On page 11, and regarding the author's considerations about the hypothesis, I make the following comment:

Informational and relational communication as organizational resources has a significant but distinct influence on how employees support their employer during the crisis. While informational communication influences employees' acceptance of managerial decisions, relational communication influences affective commitment, the strongest driver of job engagement.

I would have liked to have seen the authors address this dichotomy in the work as it would increase the relevance and accuracy of the investigation.

• (4) On page 12, regarding the author's conclusions, I make the following comment:

I'm afraid I disagree with the conclusion drawn up in lane 142: "Therefore, we must listen to employees and communities and take into account their interests to achieve community involvement and thus pick up the benefits of employee involvement and remain sustainable over time (sic)."

No, this doesn't constitute an accurate statement, and the premise is wrong. Natural disasters can't be prevented through communication between employees and communities. It's illogical. As the name implies, their origin lies in nature, not in poor communications between employees, managers, and communities. I.e., even improving these communications, reaching an ideal state, it would still not be possible to avoid natural disasters.

So, I strongly advise the authors to remove this conclusion (or radically change it) since it does not agree with the truth.

• (4) The authors could present a forthcoming study perspective. Specifically, future research might consider exploring the following questions: When uncertainty is shared, what factors influence communicators' choice of communication content (i.e., what to say and not to say)? How do workers (listeners) evaluate the credibility of communicated messages? What are the benefits and costs of being forthcoming in communication?

Moreover, there is one error in the references. Ahmed et al. (2021) are not in the text.

The current work, as it is, need some clarification.

Best regards,

I.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments. Our paper was enriched substantially.

We reviewed the entire document emphasizing:

1. Theme framework in the manuscript
2. Scope & Depth
3. Clarity and Focus
4. Discussion and Conclusions Accuracy

 

However, I must recognize that sometimes my writing is quite concrete.

We believe that you were right and erase some of the lines that were wrong as you can observe.

I loved your comment about informative and relational communication, it was a big hint.

Also, we reviewed the document grammatically.  We highlighted the changes with colors so you can appreciate the proposal. Hope our work meets the requirements.

Once again, thanks for the detailed review.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript ID: sustainability-1437761

 

Title    Organizational strategies and their impact on employee commitment during the health emergency

 

Brief summary.

 

This paper faces the effect of COVID-19 on organizations. Specifically, the authors focused on relationships between organizational strategies applied during the health emergency and employee commitment to the organization.

In my opinion, the paper is well written and organized; and presents an interesting contribution. The title is appropriate; data and results supported the conclusions.

According to this, this reviewer wishes to express gratitude to the authors for the opportunity of reading this interesting and inspiring paper.

However, the study requires some revisions to improve the quality of the paper.

Therefore, I invite authors to respond to my comments.

 

Broad comments.

 

Introduction

 

The first section of the introduction needs to proper background and motivation of the study, including a more clear statement of the problem. Please, integrate this part.

 

Discussion.

 

Your manuscript lacks a discussion on how other countries could benefit from this research. In particular, in describing a Case Study, it’s important for the authors to offer a detailed discussion and/or enunciation of (a) lessons learned in applying a certain technique/method, (b) how the experience of the case study could be replicated to another entity in other parts of the world to enhance its broader impact.

 

This reviewer wishes the authors good luck with the publication of their work!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thanks for your valuable comments. We added a line specifying the kind of study we conducted in the State of Guanajuato. As you observed, it was an unique and specific situation that may be could not be replicable in other settings.

 

We also contextualized more the study giving more specific data about the problematic situation that the organizations of the state are living

We highlighted the changes in blue as you can easily observe our new proposal

Hope we meet the requirements.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf