Sustainable Development in the Digital Age of Entrepreneurship

1.

Reviewer's comments

Author's reply

The paper concentrates on the important issue from the perspective of enterprises (especially the SME sector) in regard to how CSR-Communicating with stakeholders, CSR-Knowledge management and CSR-Strategy, influence the building of a Sustainable development model in enterprises.

Thank you very much for your relevant and rich comments. I gave them all due attention. I was a bit sorry that a weak motivation was specified. The author tried not only to make an article focused on the next literature review but to create a research model and verify it in the study, which gives further motivation to combine theory with practice.

However, the very large contribution of the reviewer motivated me, even more, to act better - I hope that I met the requirements because I referred to all the comments and replied below.

1.

Motivation is weak. Authors could better define the research question and the aim of the paper. Moreover, they could better point out the existing gap in the literature.

Dear Reviewer’s my intention was to create a theoretical model and verify it in empirical research that was successful. I focused on constructs and hypothesis verification.

„The purpose of this article is to present the research model that examines dependencies of how CSR-Communicating with stakeholders, CSR-Knowledge management and CSR-Strategy, influence the building of a Sustainable development model in enterprises”.

Please be understanding - your tips will be an impulse for me to describe the structure and theoretical point of view even better in the next article. Now I have added an introduction with extended literature in detail and an existing gaps in the literature. I hope it will be satisfied;

2.

The introduction should be extended, i.e. brief information on used methods, why this method was chosen instead of, etc.

I added a new introduction with: the purpose of the work, gaps in the literature are shown. The description of the PLS-PM data processing method and model testing are underlined.

3.

A literature review is in the introduction of the paper. You should extract the literature review section.

Consequently, following the comments of the Reviewer, a separate introduction was conducted and theoretical foundations and hypotheses were formulated;

4.

The methodology section is very weak. They mentioned 7 Likert scales but there are no statistical inferences simply correlation is not enough.

Thank you for these comments - The results are presented clearly – I will systematically improve them and I will present the remaining results of the research in the following articles.

5.

Literature review and improvements in regard to literature background should be made. Examples of articles that may be useful for the authors identifying similar contributions and better show what is the specific contribution.

Amr ElAlfy, Nicholas Palaschuk, Dina El-Bassiouny, Jeffrey Wilson, and Olaf Weber (2020) Scoping the Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Research in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Era. Sustainability, 12(14), 5544. doi: org/10.3390/su12145544

Mehrnaz Ashrafi, Gregory M. Magnan, Michelle Adams and Tony R. Walker (2020) Understanding the Conceptual Evolutionary Path and Theoretical Underpinnings of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability. Sustainability, 12(3), 760. doi: org/10.3390/su12030760

Lewandowska, A. and Stopa, M. (2020) The impact of innovative professional qualifications on the sense of employment security: evidence from Poland. Economics and Sociology, 13(3), 72-83. doi: 10.14254/2071-789X.2020/13-3/5

Cook, Kirsten A.; Romi, Andrea M.; Sánchez, Daniela; Sánchez, Juan Manuel. (2019). The influence of corporate social responsibility on investment efficiency and innovation. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 46(3/4), 494-537. doi: 10.1111/jbfa.12360

Thank you for these comments –  I improvement literature background (15new )

I have read and considered all the articles, thank you - I have included them in the bibliography, too…but the subject matter of these articles is not closely related to my research

„Therefore, this paper aims to provide a scoping review to synthesize academic literature on CSR since the global adoption of the SDGs”.

„This study intends to explore contributions of theories of the firm in explicating why and how integrating corporate social responsibility  (CSR)  and corporate sustainability (CS) into business strategic decisions and operation processes helps to improve the viability of corporations”.

„The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of innovative professional qualifications on the sense of employment security. The research methods adopted for this paper are

statistical analysis of the Internet job offers along with the Internet data collection

preceding it”. „The main conclusions are as follows: innovative qualifications are mostly of engineering and science character, they are more often chosen by men, and they do not correlate with a clearly greater feeling of own security at the labor market”

„We examine two important channels through which corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects firm value: investment efficiency and innovation”. „We also find that firms with higher CSR performance generate more patents and patent citations”.

6.

Discussion and Conclusions should be better. The results are presented clearly, but the findings are not compared and contrasted with relevant literature. Linking theoretical considerations with empirical findings and providing some planning insights is critical in a journal with the scope of Sustainability.

In accordance with the comments of the reviewer, the text has been edited and the link between theoretical considerations and empirical findings has been taken into account, and some insights have been provided for further considerations and research.

7.

Another issue of the paper is a novelty. What are the new findings of the study as there is much work done on the same issue?

The construct is new to the article, all research so far is a theoretical review or considers the task without at least one construct. The approach to the model taking into account four constructs: CSR - communication, CSR - knowledge management, CSR-Strategy, and Sustainable development is innovative.

Thank you.

3.

Reviewer's comments

              Author's reply

1.

92. Define "proper communication."

Thank you very much for your relevant and rich comments:) and...

In general, proper communication means communicating with stakeholders in general and/or only with selected stakeholders. Literature and research results indicate poor communication with stakeholders, also in the SME sector.

In my research, I defined CSR-Communication as

CSR-C 1. The enterprises provide ways of two-way communication with key customers/stakeholders;

CSR-C 2. Employees put pressure on CSR practices;

CSR-C 3. Customers put pressure on CSR practices;

CSR-C 4. Stakeholders put pressure on CSR practices;

2.

101-103. Reference for the statement made?

Thank you ;

3.

105-107. Is there a particular type of CSR communication with stakeholders understood here (and how to assess the notion of "positive"?)

Construct, CSR-Communication with stakeholders

CSR-C 1. The enterprises provide ways of two-way communication with key customers/stakeholders;

CSR-C 2. Employees put pressure on CSR practices;

CSR-C 3. Customers put pressure on CSR practices;

CSR-C 4. Stakeholders put pressure on CSR practices;

4.

119-120. Not sure what is meant here re "success of knowledge management toward s r"?

Add: To achieve success in social responsibility is often determined by regularity knowledge management:

1. regularity and consistency (one-off social actions do not create a CSR-Strategy, nor are they a sufficient source of knowledge about treating CSR as an action strategy);

2. commitment and acceptance of CSR activities by the management and manage-rial staff;

3. treating corporate social responsibility activities as a daily practice of stakeholders from various areas. Treating responsibility in terms of benefits for the entire organization;

4. understandable translation of CSR knowledge into practice based on the company's industry and the use of diverse knowledge and communication between departments and stakeholders;

5. authentic practices and not just the use of CSR for public information.

5.

121. "regularity & consistency " of what?

It in mining that one-off social actions do not create a CSR-Strategy, nor are they a sufficient source of knowledge about treating CSR as an action strategy);

6.

131.  Should that be "for enhancing public profile"?

In the era of data openness, actual CSR practices count, not just individual declarations. Good and bad corporate social responsibility practices are quickly communicated on social media. It is recognized that social media is an important factor in the current market.

7.

136. Take out "following author" & replace it with "researcher"

Ok, thank you

8.

138-145. Useful to have some references here

Ok, thank you.

9.

163. Take out "author" & replace it with "the researcher"

Ok, thank you

10.

184. Should read "& constructs of" were taken from - actually name the authors in the brackets

Ok, thank you

11.

209. Should read "as fitting well the data"

Now: Survey methods as a tool for measuring CSR are particularly useful when it fits well in data on CSR activity or reputation indices are not obligatory for enterprises.

12.

251. Should be "Authors"

Ok, thank you

13.

252. Should read "results which indicate"

Now: Theoretical model and visualization of results which indicate theoretical model and visualization.

14.

254. Should read "as fitting well to the data"

Now: Theoretical model and visualization of results which indicate theoretical model and visualization.

15.

285. Again, the issue of what type of communication  - i.e. much communication can be dysfunctional?

Is the fact that this study occurred in the agribusiness sector an issue for generalizations etc?

Construct, CSR-Communication with stakeholders

CSR-C 1. The enterprises provide ways of two-way communication with key customers/stakeholders;

CSR-C 2. Employees put pressure on CSR practices;

CSR-C 3. Customers put pressure on CSR practices;

CSR-C 4. Stakeholders put pressure on CSR practices;

16.

293-94. The statement "It cannot be argued ...." is unclear. Please clarify. In fact, you need to rework/rewrite 293-298 as very unclear and awkward

Now: Enterprises from the SME sector in the agribusiness sector have been noted to be invasive to the environment.

17.

302. Take out "was". Rewrite 302-305

Thank you

18.

305. "are discussed:" Poorly structured - rework.

Thank you

Now: The model combined the CSR strategy with the implementation of the goals of sustainable development.

19.

307, You mention First but then what are the others... i.e. Second (is that 310?) and Third (is that 313?)

Thank you;

20.

315. Should read "have the greatest"

Thank you

21.

322-23. What about suggesting some solutions here?

Now: Small business owners face challenges when using social media and this has been attributed to lack of knowledge about the technology, fear of negative assessments on the Internet, low activity on the Internet, lack of a specific strategy.

22.

323-4. Not sure what this sentence means here - seems out of place.

23.

325. Should read "and the conclusions made also ..."

24.

333. Limitations should include a focus on one sector- agribusiness

Discussion, limitation, and further research: The main limitation of the presented study is the selection of the sample. The research was done in the agribusiness sector, a larger sample or a different sector may give a better generalization of the results. Another limitation is the selection of measures for the research tool. There are many construction selection methods, there is no standardization of the tool that has been adopted in practice. The proprietary model easily combines CSR strategies with sustainable development. By effectively using all of these structures, an organization can enjoy better productivity in terms of sustainability. Leaders of the SME sector should communicate effectively with stake-holders, manage knowledge and create specific CSR strategies towards sustainable development. The results of the analyzes are a contribution to further research in terms of dependencies in terms of the specifics of communicating with selected groups of stakeholders, specifying communication channels in terms of stakeholder groups, and mapping stakeholders in the preparation of long-term strategies.

Thank You.