Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises Based on Grounded Theory, Entropy Method and Cloud Model from the Perspective of ESG
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The overall design of the article is reasonable, and the grounded theory is used to explore and build the index system. The stakeholder theory and sustainable development design are used to build the financial and social responsibility model, and the company is used to simulate the model. The research method adopted is scientific. The logic of the demonstration process is clear and the viewpoint is clear.
There are several questions:
1. Only enterprise Z is used as the empirical research and analysis. Although the scientific and feasibility of the method can be verified to a certain extent, all the analysis is only for enterprise Z. is enterprise Z representative of the industry? Moreover, enterprises in the coal industry also have different strategies, resource advantages, market and product characteristics. It is difficult to reflect the differential marketing of these factors on enterprise performance in this study.
2. Due to the lack of comparison with other enterprises, there is no way to make a comparative evaluation. So it is difficult to prove the rationality of selecting these indicators.
3. Therefore, on the whole, it is difficult to obtain policy suggestions and management decisions that are more conducive to the development of the industry and have more universal significance and value.
4. the language of the article need to be revised.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This study designs an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" model framework to conduct a performance evaluation research of coal enterprises under the guidance of sustainable development. The research has certain significance. I have the following suggestions：
1. The abstract should be further refined to highlight the core content and conclusion of the study.
2. It is suggested that the authors strengthen the sorting out of the existing literature. The author said that "Most research results focus on one aspect of economic performance, environmental performance or social responsibility performance." In fact, existing studies have explored the Unified efficiency, energy and environmental efficiency, economic and environmental performance of mining enterprises including coal mining enterprises. Here are some of them；
（1）Zhang, Y., & Song, Y. (2020). Unified efficiency of coal mining enterprises in China: An analysis based on meta-frontier non-radial directional distance functions. Resources Policy, 65, 101581.
（2）Zhang, Y., & Song, Y. (2022). Tax rebates, technological innovation and sustainable development: Evidence from Chinese micro-level data. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 176, 121481.
3. The overall length of the article needs to be condensed.
4. It is recommended that the running code of 4.2.2 be placed in the appendix.
5. There are some grammar problems, please correct.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The topic under study in this manuscript may be suitable for this journal, but this manuscript suffers from some major shortcomings that should be considered to improve the quality of this research.
1- The Abstract section doesn't reflect the theoretical contributions of this study.
2- The authors must use valid references to support all their statements in the first paragraph of the first section.
3- The Introduction section is too long. This section doesn't describe the research questions and objectives clearly.
4- The literature review part should be provided comprehensively.
5- What are the features of this study compared to other ones?
6- The research gap is unclear in this manuscript.
7- Who are the experts used in this research? How did you select them?
8- The validation of the results and comparisons should be provided in the analysis of the results section.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Reviewer 4 Report
SUMMARY
Title: Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an “ESG-GT-EM-CM” Model Framework
This paper proposes and develops a methodology for the performance evaluation of coal enterprises considering not only financial but also Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors. To this end, the Grounded Theory (GT) qualitative research method is used to construct the structural dimension model and the coal enterprise performance evaluation index system considering four factors/dimensions, namely finance and ESG. Policy data and interview data for sample selection and data collection plus data coding were used for category extraction (35 specific indicators in three levels). The performance evaluation model of coal enterprise based on ESG was constructed using the Entropy Method (EM) and Cloud Model (CM). The former to obtain the weights of the indices, and the latter to obtain the membership degree of each index to each of five performance grades (excellent, good, medium, low, and poor). Failing the maximum membership degree principle, the weighted membership degree principle is used to estimate the performance of coal enterprises as a whole and in each of the four dimensions. A single case study is used to test the proposed ESG-GT-EM-CM method to estimate the financial + ESG performance of coal enterprises.
COMMENTS
1. Title is too long, and the use of the colon (“:”) is incorrect. It should be at least removed.
2. The long and concatenated acronym “ESG-GT-EM-CM” is used in title and in abstract before being defined. Not best practice. Should be avoided.
3. Level of English writing should be improved.
4. Paper is unreasonably long. It should be more concise and streamlined. It is often unnecessarily repetitive. It should be shorter, clearer and more concise.
5. Introduction is too long, and I believe it is unnecessarily focused on China. If the Western countries are more developed on assessing enterprise performance considering ESG factors, can their methodologies not be simply adopted?
6. Titles of reports are sometimes reproduced in the manuscript instead of just the citation. See, for example, Lines 581-583 ([51], [52]).
7. Possibly, where it says “summarized” in Lines 758 and 760, should say “summed” or “aggregated”.
8. I believe Fig. 5 shows the five performance grades. This should be more clear in the caption and the figure should include a legend.
9. Quality of Fig. 5 can be improved (better than a screenshot). Figs. 4 and 6 are unacceptable.
10. Format and scaling of Figs. 7 to 11 are inconsistent.
11. Figs. 2 and 3 are very helpful. Still, the overall proposed framework is unclear and hard to follow. The (unnecessary) length of each section and the lack of a figure showing the whole approach (or at least several partial figures with a clear link among them) makes the proposed method hard to follow.
12. The amount of work is quite impressive, and the research methodology appears solid. However, it is fair to note that the identified categories/indices could be defined by an expert alone. It is nonetheless useful to have a systematic approach in place, with the fine tuning to be carried out progressively as the method is used. For instance, if used on a list of enterprises, minor tweaks in the weightings would completely change the ranking.
13. The single case study, the lack of benchmarking, and the lack of comparison against results obtained by other authors/methodologies decreases the quality of the paper. I would have liked to see performances of a few enterprises and their ranking considering at least the proposed approach and a classical one based on financial performance only (and if possible, results obtained by other approaches considering the same four primary categories: financial + ESG).
14. Why is the analysis of the case study said to be empirical?
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
this version is covered my comments. After the language modification, it could be consider to be accepted.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
We appreciate your recognition of our article.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Reviewer 2 Report
The article has been greatly improved，and l have no other comments.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
We appreciate your recognition of our article.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I appreciate the authors' efforts to consider my comments. However, I could not follow your revisions clearly without having a point-by-point response file. Furthermore, I think the authors must do proofreading to improve the presentation and writing styles of this manuscript.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
COMMENTS
1. Most of my previous comments, in particular the critical ones, have been addressed satisfactorily.
2. The title more clearly reflects what this paper proposes. It still uses one acronym (ESG), but it would be too long otherwise. Personally, I would replace the hyphens by commas and “and” (though this is by no means a requirement):
“Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises Based on Grounded Theory, Entropy Method and Cloud Model from the Perspective of ESG”.
3. Level of English writing has improved.
4. My previous “Point 8” has not been properly addressed. The quality and scale of the figure seem better, but the caption is still the same and there is no legend explaining the colour-codes (i.e. the five figures). From context, these represent the five performance grades, which should be stated in a legend and in the caption.
That said, this is not a critical issue.
5. While it is useful to have the “tracked changes” activated to quickly identify what has been changed, it would also be useful to have the final version neatly presented too. Especially, when there are so many changes. It is hard to see the final version like this.
6. This research still has some weaknesses, as the authors acknowledge in their response letter: “…this model framework belongs to the static performance evaluation and is not systematic enough. In addition, we only used a single case enterprise to verify the model framework of ESG-GT-EM-CM, which lacks some convincing due to the small amount of data.” Nonetheless, it has merit. The amount of work is impressive and the proposed performance evaluation method is interesting.
Author Response
Dear Review expert,
Thank you very much for your comments on the article (" Research on Performance Evaluation of Coal Enterprises from the Perspective of Sustainable Development: Based on an "ESG-GT-EM-CM" Model Framework). We highly appreciate your valuable modification comments and suggestions. We have revised the manuscript in detail as you requested.
The attachment is the modification details, please check.
In the future, we will continue to make in-depth exploration of this research topic and hope to have the opportunity to have academic exchanges with you!
We wish you good health and smooth work!
We look forwards to hearing from you in the future!
Thank you！
Yours sincerely and on behalf of co-authors Suli Hao, Chongbao Ren, Lu Zhang.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
