Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1The paper is a good effort on very important topic and have some contribution as well but needs some improvements, espacially in methodology section.

1) abstract require improvement and should reflect conclusion, and policy Implications.

2) The introduction needs improvement. Authors are advised to improve study motivation. Moreover, Gap identification should also be highlighted more intensively with current relevant references.

3) Literature is also not incorporated as a standard which needs to be updated with recent developments in the field. The literature review lacks evidence for the relationships. For example there are no theoretical supports for all the proposed questions. 

4.     The methodology section needs further work, adding relevant citations that used this technique, moreover only one source is used like Scopus. atleast add more sources in initial search or atleast compare with them as sources like WoS are important for completeness of analysis. 

5.     Research implications and future recommendations are not presented satisfactorily. I suggest the authors to read some scientific papers published in journals and improve/revise their study usefulness for industry and literature.

Best of Luck

 

 

Author Response

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for allowing us to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled
“Sustainability Reporting through Environmental, Social, and Governance: A Bibliometric Review”. We appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on our paper. We have been able to incorporate changes to reflect most of the suggestions provided by the reviewers. We have highlighted the changes within the manuscript. Here is a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments and concerns.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Sustainability Reporting through Environmental, Social, and Governance: A Bibliometric Review

General remarks

The manuscript concerns the bibliometric study on Sustainability Reporting.

In my opinion, the work poses valid and important research questions, well fitting the Aims & Scope of Sustainability.

Overall, I find the manuscript quite well organized, even if confused in some parts. The methodology requires expansion; the analysis of the results must be improved; the discussion needs to be deeper. References must be expanded. Figures are not all significant.

With a view to increase both the clarity and the scientific soundness of the manuscript as well as the interest of the readers, I propose the following improvements.

Specific points

ABSTRACT. According to the rules of Sustanability “The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings”. Please edit the abstract accordingly.

Design/Methodology/approach. It is appropriate to start the paragraph referring to the use of Scopus and then introduce the use of the VOSviewer and Gephi software.

Findings. Acronyms must be defined.

Finally, the authors will indicate who the potential beneficiaries of this study are and why.

1. INTRODUCTION. Clarify the meaning of "Sustainability reporting" with appropriate bibliographic references. I can suggest [1].

The last paragraph of the section indicates a structure of the manuscript that does not correspond to the actual one (e.g., "Conclusions" are currently merged with the "Discussion").

2. LITERATURE REVIEW. The authors refer that Khan (2002) conducted a bibliometric analysis on ESG performance using the Scopus database underlying that the same author proposed “[...] extending it [bibliometric analysis] to other databases to improve the data set”. That said, why didn't the authors of the manuscript consider other databases? Why did they still use Scopus? It is necessary to justify the choice.

METHODS. The section is quite poor and requires an in-depth improvement.

Make explicit, also through a table, the search criteria used to identify the documents in Scopus (e.g., period examined, type of documents considered).

I don't understand what is meant by «This database was used to extract previous work on web accessibility [?]». Please clarify.

Figure 1 and Prisma flow diagram must be discussed in its individual phases. Furthermore, the authors will briefly explain what the PRISMA methodology consists of, citing the authors in the text, not in the caption of Figure 1.

The authors must cite the references for both VOSviewer and Gephi software. Also, indicate the software versions adopted. Furthermore, the features of the software must be briefly illustrated to contextualize the discussion of the results (e.g., Figure 4). For example, the authors should discuss the different types of maps that can be obtained with VOSviewer (network visualization, overlay visualization, and density visualization).

In order to allow the results to be reproduced, the authors should indicate the parameters used for building the maps (e.g., the minimum number of occurrences, the cluster resolution, and the minimum cluster size). Lastly, references related to the consolidated use of both VOSviewer [2] and Gephi [3] software are suitable.

RESULTS. The date on which the data was downloaded from Scopus will be indicated in the “Methods” section, not in the “Results”.

Explain the possible reasons for the 2020 and 2021 peaks in the graph of Figure 1 (to be renumbered as Figure 2).

The time interval indicate in the caption of Figure 1 (actually Figure 2) should be corrected in “1968-2022 (n=358)”.

Where is subsection 4.1?

4.2 Document and Source Types. “Journal”, no “magazine”

4.3. Language of documents. “most documents”, no “many documents”

4.5 Geographic Distribution of Publication and Affiliation. Figure 2 (Total publication…) does not include TP (Total Publications). However, the graph can be deleted.

I suggest adding the analysis of the collaboration between countries. It can be useful to suggest possible strengthening of the research networks.

4.7. Citation analysis. Cite reference for "Publish or Perish" software [4]

5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION. I suggest separating the section in two parts: “Discussion” and “Conclusions”. Furthermore, discussion needs to be linked to the literature (e.g., when the authors argued out on the clusters as derived from the VOSviewer analysis).

The statement “the previous literature suggests…” requires being constraint to the proper bibliographic reference(s).

Kind regards

 

 

References suggested

[1] Daub, C.H. Assessing the quality of sustainability reporting: An alternative methodological approach. J. Clean. Prod. 2007, 15, 75–85.

[2] Gizzi, F.T.; Potenza, M.R. The Scientific Landscape of November 23rd, 1980 Irpinia-Basilicata Earthquake: Taking Stock of (Almost) 40 Years of Studies. Geosciences 2020, 10, 482. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10120482

[3] Gonzales-Gemio, C.; Cruz-Cázares, C.; Parmentier, M.J. Responsible Innovation in SMEs: A Systematic Literature Review for a Conceptual Model. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10232. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122410232

[4] Harzing, A.W. (2007) Publish or Perish, available from https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish

Author Response

Dear Dr./ Mr./Ms. [Editor's Name],

Thank you for allowing us to submit a revised draft of my manuscript titled “Sustainability Reporting through Environmental, Social, and Governance: A Bibliometric Review”. We appreciate the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. We are grateful to the reviewers for their insightful comments on our paper. We have been able to incorporate changes to reflect most of the suggestions provided by the reviewers. We have highlighted the changes within the manuscript. Here is a point-by-point response to the reviewers’ comments and concerns.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The versions of the VOSviewer and Gephi software must be indicated only once in the text (in the methodology).

4.8 Keywords Analysis

The sentence "Before VOSviewer, bibliographic data was presented in the form of nodes and lines." requires one/two bibliographic references.

Lastly, according to the "Instructions for Authors" of Sustainability, "References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript." and "[...] In the text, reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [] ..."

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We have made the necessary changes based on your comments and recommendations. Thank you.

 

regards,

Nelson

Author Response File: Author Response.docx