Adaptability in Public Procurement of Engineering Services Promoting Carbon Reduction: An Organizational Control Perspective
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to read “Adaptability in the Public Procurement of Environmentally Sustainable Engineering Services”. I have the following comments:
- My main concerns are about the relevance of most of the text to the title i.e., adaptability and public procurement. The authors need to revise the paper, ensure more connectivity between different paragraphs, and not lose sight of the title. Currently, there is a lot of literature present in the paper with no context or connection shown to the adaptability in public procurement. As an example, the sections where organizational controls are discussed are poorly aligned with the subject of the paper. Please ensure the connectivity throughout the paper
- Please discuss the specific areas/domains of the public procurement model that are affected and can benefit from the adaptability. For example, what types of public projects are the authors referring to (PPP, BOT, O&M)? Please discuss relevant details in the introduction section.
- I would suggest replacing the work “means” with discussed/highlighted/stated, etc., in lines 65 and 66.
- Many studies have explored the procurement of engineering services; thus, the claim that such studies are limited may not be true. Please focus on the study’s novelty and highlight this in detail as to what innovation this study is bringing to the body of knowledge, specifically in the areas of public procurement and adaptability.
- At the end of the introduction section, discuss how the study (rest of the paper) is organized in a paragraph.
- Please mention and discuss in the introduction section that a case study approach is adopted in the paper.
- The linkage of organizational control to the topic is not clear. The authors haven’t established the basis for this in the introduction section, and hence seeing this in the literature confuses the readers and makes the paper hard to follow. Please ensure the coherency of the paragraphs and ease the readability by providing connections between various sections of the paper.
- The authors must add a detailed section on adaptability in the public procurement projects to the literature. The literature section needs a major overhaul. Please rewrite (improve) with a focus on public procurement and the intended adaptability.
- The selection criteria for respondents selection needs more explanation and clarity. For example, how were the residents classified as a fit for such data collection? What was the control measure put in place?
- There is always a problem of bias with using respondents from a single project/organization/case study. The authors need to discuss this more and clearly explain how this bias was controlled in the current study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Latest references may kindly be added and it is also recommended that proof read may be done by any expert in English Language
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
In this paper the authors tried to investigate on how the public client will create incentives for a service provider to deliver environmentally sustainable engineering services, through the choice of procurement strategy.
May be sustainability could be defined in the introduction. The part on adaptability in the introduction seems too important. Sustainability has to be more developed.
Lines 132: the sentence could be improved, and the performance could be defined in order to well explained how control has an impact on the performance.
The literature review has to be improved. It is difficult to understand exactly why the topics developed in this part have been chosen. Pay attention to the same sub-section titles such as Reward system, or bid invitation and bid evaluation.
May be a paragraph could be added at the end of the literature review as a synthesis on how the literature review will contribute or valorize the concepts presented in this paper.
I am not sure that I understand the data analysis part. What the author would like to explain us. May be a clear and detailed explanation on this part is required.
In the finding part, the carbon emission reduction requires the measure of existing and future performance, may be this part could be completed.
The theoretical contribution as explained in the conclusion has to be more explained in the method and the findings parts.
Author Response
Please see the attahcment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for addressing my comments. Some minor suggestions:
- The last reference number is incorrect (it should be 70, not 1)
- You don't need to divide conclusions into sub-sections, I suggest removing them.
