Sustainability Culture of Polish Universities in Professionalization of Management

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for careful analysis of our research article and your possitive opinion about our work.


Best Regards,
Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have touched an important topic of research on sustainability culture and professionalization of management at  Higher Education Institutions.

I would suggest the authors could research more articles Sustainability Assessment in Higher Education Institutions such as those of special issues; example:

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/sus_assess_edu

They have presented a descriptive and explanatory nomothetic study based on survey with direct questionnaire.  Can you please explain why have you selected only those methodology and the origin from data. For example: ¿Which Polish universities have participated in this study?. Can you please give more information on the survey?

The results and conclusions of the study would read more clearly if they were presented in parallel structure with the questions of this paper.

• how to create such sustainable universities?
• are the universities subject to transformation and already transforming in accord-130 ance with the idea of sustainable development? 
• do the employees perceive these changes?
• what decisions concerning the structural and resource components of the universities have already been made?
• and what areas of relations with the environment are currently taken care of by the universities?

I hope you find these comments helpful. Thank you for the opportunity to review your work.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all thank you for careful analysis of our research article and your comments and suggestions. As recommended we did changes in particular we refer to special issue "Sustainability Assessment in HEI's".

Regarding methodology we used - survey with direct questionnaire. In first stage based on layered selection method with proportional allocation - sample of 38 Polish universities were selected (both public and non-public) with respect to assumed fraction. In the second stage of research - individual units (humans) were randomly selected and examined with questionnaire. So finally all research was intentionally anonymous. Of course we had to ensure statistical correctness of sampling. It was not case study based research - so we don't specify and present names of particular Universities.

We believe that Results and Conclusions section of our article address most of research questions we set in the Introduction section.

All changes we have introduced to our article based on your review are aimed to make whole paper more consistent and interesting for reviewers and readers.

We believe that updated version of the article will meet expectations of Reviewer's Board.


Best Regards,
Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Paper needs revision based on following statements;

1.The need for the study should be underlined

2. Research questions should be enriched.

3. Summary and conclusion should be developed

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all thank you for careful analysis of our research article and your comments and suggestions.

All changes we have introduced to our article based on your review are aimed to make whole paper more consistent and interesting for reviewers and readers.

We believe that updated version of the article will meet expectations of Reviewer's Board.


Best Regards,
Authors

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper is focused on identifying the impact of professionalization of management of Polish universities on its sustainability culture and more general, on sustainable development of universities. The topic is both important  and interesting, and some more general and global interest is related to the topic, mainly through conceptual approach to investigate the professionalization of management of universities and exploring its impact with relation to sustainability. Nevertheless, the paper is missing stronger confrontation with global challenge of sustainability of universities. Authors should project the results of the research that was held in Poland towards global scale and discuss the possibilities of using the experiences and findings from the research in global context. Again, Authors should also comment on limitations of interpretation their research from global perspective by showing eventual differences between Polish academic sector and its global counterparts.

The paper is well written, referenced to actual and significant literature and has objectively important overall merit. The text has appropriate structure and covers it well with the content. The methodology or the paper is proper one for its objectives. The logic used for research is quite complex (professionalization of management -> quality culture -> sustainability culture -> sustainability) and perhaps requires some more justification within both, the introduction and within results and conclusion sections. The research methodology seems to be well suited and justified. The results are well documented and presented in a clear and just manner. The conclusion is too general and should be more specifically oriented on the results of the research.

Another recommendation is to elaborate the discussion section in the paper, which is not well visible. The results of the analysis should be projected versus the results of similar studies (in a sense of methodology and the topic). This would certainly help in improving academic soundness of the paper and strength of its arguments. Despite all the remarks presented above, the paper is a good and well written academic work and is coherent with its topic profile of the Sustainability journal. Some more detailed remarks are included in the manuscript attached to the review.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all thank you for careful analysis of our research article and your detailed comments and suggestions. They were very helpful to improve our article.

Changes we have introduced to our article based on your review are aimed to make whole paper more consistent and interesting for reviewers and readers.

We believe that updated version of the article will meet expectations of Reviewer's Board.


Best Regards,
Authors

Reviewer 5 Report

Overall is satisfactory with critical reviews on sustainability culture in HEIs, especially professionalisation management from various resources. This manuscript is more suitable for "review" type paper submission. 

 There are few matters need to be solved:

 - some of the statements are incomplete and proper citation format in the text, e.g. line 40-41 (page 1), line 335 (page 7), etc.

- some factual statements need proper citation, e.g. line 353-357 (page 7), line 223-229 (page 5), line 159-175, 190-198 (page 4)

- discussion of the findings that related to the aims and research questions that mentioned earlier in introduction need to be added.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First of all thank you for careful analysis of our research article and your detailed comments and suggestions. They were very helpful to improve our article.

Changes we have introduced to our article based on your review and suggestions are aimed to make whole paper more consistent and interesting for reviewers and readers.

We believe that updated version of the article will meet expectations of Reviewer's Board.


Best Regards,
Authors

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to note my appreciation of the paper and the effort of the authors in conducting this study

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behaf of Author's Team I would like to thank you for possitive feedback and all your effort.

Authors.

Reviewer 3 Report

proof reading can be done. Update references should be added more. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

On behaf of Author's Team I would like to thank you for possitive feedback and all your effort. Together with authors we will append some references and fine tune English language and style of article.

Best Regards,
Authors.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The work presented is part of a very large investigation. In the introduction, the objectives of the macro-research should not be presented, if not only, of the part that is shared in the article.

The bibliographic references presented are adequate, current and draw the context of the research. However, sources such as the orientation guides for the introduction of the SDGs in universities are not mentioned. Such is the case of the guides that appear on the Sustainable development Solutions Network website (https://www.unsdsn.org/). These resources should be taken into account to discuss the results of the work and enrich the improvement proposals.

The qualitative character of the research is also manifested by stating that the observations of the participants and the qualitative analysis of the documentary research are used as research methods. However, in section 5 on materials and methods, only the statistical treatment of the survey is explained and the characteristics of the qualitative analysis carried out are not detailed.

In the conclusions, the presence of proposals for improvement or comparisons with other countries in the region or the world is absent. It is an interesting opportunity given the characteristics of the article and should not be missed. Figure 2. Creating a diversified quality culture in the direction of professionalization of management belongs to the results section and not to the conclusions section, as the same table indicates.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors!

First of all, many thanks for given me the opportunity to review your paper.

The idea is interesting, however the paper hasn't been prepared well at all, particularly it fundamentally lacks key components that should constitute a scientifically sound paper (incl. consistency, coherency). Furthermore, professional proofreading and copy editing is mandatory!

Here are my suggestions and critics about the manuscript:

1. In general and to the abstract

In my opinion the title should be revised and redesigned completely as it is unspecific and does not represent the approach of the paper to the core topic (By the way: please make also clear what precisely the “core” of your paper is/should be).

Sampling and national focus on Poland leads to a lack of generalizability and a limitation/restriction of the readership.

Measurement of the “Impact of the concept of sustainable development on the culture of the quality of professionalization of management in universities” is unclear. In this context also the operationalization of the constructs addressed in the abstract is totally missing and unclear. The question remains: Should the measurement of the impact be the focus of your paper/considerations?

Which method did you apply? Survey? The applied method is unclear.

To this sequence in the abstract: “[…] suggestions proposed […] define a roadmap […] professionalization of teaching and organizational process management […]”; so there is “research” - as one very important aspect of university management - definitely missing in your work!

Finally:  It is advised to the author/s that not to forget that most of the readers of the scientific papers are academics. So, do not elaborate the basic and well known concepts too much. Focus on your clear stated research questions (therefore it would be necessary to focus your thoughts and to reduce the number of your research questions!). Moreover, express the most important findings in the abstract: what is your contribution to literature and how is this related to the goal of your paper (and the title) you have chosen. It would be enough if you mention only the most important findings of your research in a concrete way.

By the way, the research has a potential to attract readers. But only if it is carried precisely and reported in an adequate and sounding manner.

2. Further comments (note: referring to the line numbers of the manuscript)

Line 35: Sustainable Development is not just an “Idea”.

Line 36: What “values”?

Line 37: Here are you talking about elements? If, what do you mean and which ones?

Line 40-41: How do these trends relate to “Trends in Policy and Educational Culture”?

Line 45: Which subject? Be precise and do not forget the contextualization!

Line 50: Which “changes” do you address and why are they important for your paper/the contribution you plan to make.

Line 51-60: Describe how this is different to now and how did it look like in the past?

Line 60: “Wording “fate” is not adequate…

Line 69: “which largely depends on the region in which a given university is assessed.” Why? Make it clear and describe this?

Note: The importance of quality and quality assessment is clear. Yet it is NOT clear in your paper in which context it is related to “sustainability culture”? And what is “sustainability culture” in your paper context? There is a clear definition and operationalization lacking!

Line 90-91: Why is it then “much more” difficult? Logic behind?

Line 107-109: Link this to the title – this should be the core of your paper and thus, the title should be overworked with this focus.

Line 110-114: Are these the expected outcomes? And if, are you delivering these results in your paper?

Line 122-135: imho too many questions. It is very difficult to retrace how these questions are derived from the stated hypotheses?

Line 141-143: This could be an idea for the abstract when saying something to the applied method. And: what you write in Line 144-147 is supposed to be the same? Right?

Line 169-171: “Changes in the educational quality processes, decision-making and organizational structure are possible to be carried out only when accompanied by a simultaneous creation of a sustainable quality culture.” WHY??? Be clear and precise? Argumentation?

Line 187-188: “Therefore, the key issue seems to be the engagement of stakeholders in the process of improving quality culture in the higher education sector.” Question: How do you come to this conclusion???

Line 200 and Line 205: Are you talking about “quality culture” or “sustainable quality culture”?

Line 244-247: Which one is the focus of this paper – related to the stated research questions, the title, the results, the outcome etc.???

Line 290-291: Does this paper focus on both – public and non-public HEIs (note: you were introducing the wording “HEIs” before – so you should use this consistently!!!); and Universities of Applied Sciences…. I assume that there are huge differences.

Note: And why do you focus on Poland only?? In order to make your paper interesting (and the findings generalizable) for a big audience and for many readers you should not focus in a convenient sub-sample from one national state!

Line 309-312: “The article attempts to indicate the relationship between sustainability and the concept of professionalization of management in higher education in terms of a culture of quality. This issue is not easy to demonstrate due to the specific nature of higher education institutions.” – THIS is NOT consistent with the statements in the abstract and the introduction! Now the paper starts to get very confusing!

Line 324: What kind of “threat” are you meaning?

Line 335 ongoing incl. the whole following paragraphs: Why???

Line 362 ongoing: “Professionalization” in this paragraph only refers to sustainability – and this is imho inconsistent to that what is written in chapter 3!

Line 372: What is a “didactic infrastructure with the environmentally compatible one”? How could that be? What is that?

Line 374: So the focus is not only on education as written before – right?

Line 396-397: “Student exchange between universities enables universities to make a significant contribution to the progress of the concept of sustainable development [81]”. HOW????

Line 421-423: Well, the objective of the paper - as stated earlier – is the “impact of sustainable development…” and not “…readiness of employees” …

Figure 1 and Line 445: One note to the reported numbers in the population - 399 or 392?

Line 469: How were the questions created for the questionnaire? What was the operationalization of the constructs behind?... etc. This is something that need to be reported at least in an appendix…

Line 469 ongoing: Imho there is no (clear and consistent) link/relation to the hypothesis stated in the introduction?

Table 1: Here you mention “public and private” universities (or HEIs)… - so, is this a comparative analysis?

Line 511 ongoing – the results: What about the quality culture??? There is nothing mentioned about the quality culture in the results? In general: The whole results section is very weak and the whole analysis needs to be overworked and linked to the goal of the study!

Line 565-566: Format of “This… it is one word in two lines…

Line 616 – Summary & Conclusion: Here the institution type (public and private) is considered. Anyway, it is a confusing summary of something that has no red threat over the whole paper – sorry for being that straight forward. Also this needs to be rewritten before submitting this piece of work again.

Figure 2: Is there a reference missing?

Additional remark: Please add more on the issue “Limitations and Future Research” and please, focus on limitations!

Finally, I do really hope that my short review / my notes will help you to improve your paper further. All the best!