The Impact of Green Investment and Green Marketing on Business Performance: The Mediation Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Ethiopia’s Chinese Textile Companies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper presents a topic of interest for researchers and practitioners. However, a number of improvements are needed.

1. The abstract should present the need for research, the methodology, the main results obtained and the future directions of research.
2. To emphasize the need for this study.
3. The stages of the methodology must be presented in detail.
4. To highlight the gaps filled by the present study.
5. The conclusions section should be completed with a review of the study.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments, suggestions, and questions on our manuscript, we have tried our best to precisely incorporate and respond to the points that you raised one by one. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, the authors used survey data to investigate the effects of green investment, green marketing and CSR on firm’s business performance, and they emphasized the mediation role of CSR. However, there are some problems in this paper:

1. Usually, green investment and green marketing are part of CSR, divide green investment and green marketing from CSR and treat CSR as the mediator is not so reasonable. The authors should make clearer the relation between green investment, green marketing and CSR, especially the differences among them.
2. In the literature review and forming hypotheses part, they only indicated the positive effects of green investment, green marketing and CSR on business performance. However, there are some costs in implementing these activities, otherwise all the companies should implement CSR. Companies would make a comparison between the benefits and costs. The authors should show the tradeoffs.
3. They did not show why choose Ethiopia's Chinese textile companies as a sample and show the generality and specificity of their samples.
4. When and how did you do the survey should be explained because the results may be affected by survey time and method.
5. Table 1, what does professional mean?
6. Subsection 4.2, the threshold values of alpha appeared several time, typo.
7. Subsection 4.4, weighted multiple regression, how did you choose the weight?
8. The language should be improved, there are 49 as a result, 27 therefore, and some other typos, for example, results have examined, to evaluation the effects.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your valuable comments, suggestions, and questions on our manuscript.  we have tried our best precisely incorporate and respond to the points that you raised one by one.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

First of all, congratulations on the work presented in your article.

The topic of the research was very important and actually. About the article, I have some doubts about it.

In abstract, you described the methodology and talked about the use of mixed methods. After reading the section on the design of the study the authors explain a little about how you are going to use mixed methods. Despite this little explanation, I did not see the application of qualitative data collection or any mention of the use of this data. In section 3.2. the authors talk about 16 interviews but I didn't see any information concerning the duration of each interview. 

If you have used the interview data it was not clear to me where it was used because the cross-referencing of qualitative data with quantitative data is an asset in any article. 

In the conclusions, no author mentioned in the literature review was referenced. In my opinion, you should refer to some of the studies presented in order to validate and add value to your own study. 
Section 6 should include a reference to the limitations, as they are presented in section 6.2. 
I found some formatting errors that should be improved, such as:
- Table 6 and Table 8;
- The use of abbreviations should be harmonised. CSR use in some sentences and then stop using and then use again.
- Section 4.7 has a spelling error (resposnblity).
- Sobel-test or Sobel test (see lines 664 and 666, for example)

Best of luck with your article!

Author Response

Thank you very much for your valuable comments, suggestions, and questions on our manuscript. We have tried our best to precisely incorporate and responded to the points that you raised one by one. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I accept the present version of the paper.

Author Response

We appreciate your precious time in reviewing our paper and providing valuable comments. Your helpful and insightful comments led to possible improvements in the current version.

Thank you so much.

Reviewer 2 Report

Some suggestions:

1. Table 7, keep 3 decimal digits for Sobel test would be better.

2.  6.1, Conclusion should be Conclusions. 62.1 should be 6.2.1.

Author Response

We want to express our gratitude for your prompt and thorough review of our paper as well for your constructive feedback that helped us enhance it. we have made the necessary modification.    

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you very much for your response and the improvements made to the article. 

In my opinion, the quality and the clarity of the research was increased.

Congratulations on your article.

Kind regards

Author Response

We appreciate for your precious time in reviewing our research paper and providing valuable comments and suggestions. It was your valuable and insightful comments that led to possible improvements in the current version.