Detecting Circular Economy Strategies in the Fourth Sector: Overview of the Chilean Construction Sector as Evidence of a Sustainable Business Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

-The research gaps addressed by the paper should be mentioned within the abstract. 

-The definition of the fourth sector should be mentioned more clearly. I have read two times the related text but the text does not include some fruitful information about the fourth sector.

-Profile of the respondent's participation to qualitative research should be presented in a table or figure. Only a few details about the participants are given. The education, profession, and experience of the participants also provide important information about the quality of the data.

-The discussion of the findings is missing in the paper. I strongly recommend authors to add a new section including a discussion of the findings. 

-The text between lines 698 and 703 is repetitive text so that it should be removed from the conclusion section. 

-Limitations of the work should've mentioned in the conclusion section.

-Various sentence is hard to understand and follow. Thus, proof reading is necessary. 

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer for his good comments and suggestions. We had improved each of the items that the reviewer suggests to improve. Please, see pdf file in attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. I believe that in section 2 a comparative analysis of the main characteristics of the New Business Models on Sustainability in Fourth Sector applicable both in the European Union and in Chile should be carried out. Thus the authors could explain the advantages and limitations of both models and make a strong case for the process of improving the model that is applied in Chile, which, in my opinion, would considerably increase the scientific value of the paper and, by default, the interest of the readers.

2. In the abstract of the paper, the authors talk about certain results, but these are not explicitly found in the paper. As such, I recommend including a Results and Discussion section in the paper based on an extensive analysis of the data the authors had available. In addition, I believe it would be beneficial for the authors to expand the datasets they analyze and use specialized quantitative and qualitative data analysis tools (eg: SPSS, Stata, R language, etc.) to test model hypotheses of sustainable development of the construction sector and thus validate the research work undertaken.

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer for his good comments and suggestions. We had improved each of the items that the reviewer suggests improving. Please, see pdf file in atrachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I evaluate the submitted manuscript entitled "Incentive program, motivation, employee behavior, higher performance, manufacturing company, material rewards" due to the topicality of the topic of circular economy. The general problem is the potential scarcity of resources and the level of pollution. I recommend the manuscript for publication after minor revisions:

Abstract

The abstract meets the specific specification and fulfillment of the thesis. It also lists a brief objective of the professional article. The application of methods to achieve the stated objective is quite general. The contribution of the work and the results are described quite concisely. I would recommend more specific analysis of the methods that were used in the thesis to achieve the content of the topic.  

Introduction

The introduction discusses the given dilemma. A good understanding of the subject matter is evident here and their knowledge is unquestionable. The text contains an explanation of the social demand for the dilemma in question. The final paragraphs are devoted to the stated methodology and objective where it is described and can be supported in an exact manner. Otherwise, it can be concluded that the introduction meets all the essential requirements. The last paragraph explaining the structure of the whole paper is not essential, though helpful.

Literature review (Background and Literature)

In this area, only relevant sources are used that attempt to explain or approach the stated or related idea.  Thus, all theoretical knowledge is directed towards clarifying the stated objective, followed by an explanation of the methodology in practice in the last literature passage. I highly commend the abundant use of literature sources, but would still like to recommend additional sources to cite (Pimonenko et al., 2020) and (Horak et al., 2022):

Horak, J., Rousek, P., & Opalka, V. (2022). Stock Price Trend of Selected Companies Applying the Principles of Circular Economy*. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 10(2), 448-463. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2022.10.2(28).

Pimonenko, T., Bilan, Y., Horak, J., Starchenko, L., & Gajda, W. (2020). Green Brand of Companies and Greenwashing under Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability, 12(4), 1679. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041679 

Methodology

The methodology logically explains all the expected applications of statistical methods of work with respect to the stated objective. I positively assess the sufficiency of publicly available sources used to give a holistic meaning. 

Analysis of Results

The text details the results found, which are confirmed by other research. I positively evaluate the implementation of the results in clear tables. Consultation with key sources is entirely relevant. Statistical relevance of the applied models is also presented.

Conclusions, Contributions, and Further Research 

Results are presented in the context of the manuscript's objective. However, I would explicitly answer the questions: What were the limitations of the research? What are the further research opportunities? What specific audiences (excluding management as an organizational structure) benefited from the contributions?

In conclusion, the submitted manuscript can be classified as beneficial, especially from a territorial point of view in the context of the fourth (knowledge sector). The circular economy is a topical and practically graspable topic in terms of sustainable development at the global level.

Author Response

the authors, want to thank you for your good and insightful suggestions and comments. We worked on our manuscript, trying to incorporate all your suggestions and comments to improve the article. Please see the attachment, pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article "Detecting Circular Economy Strategies in the Fourth Sector: a 2 Chilean Construction Model as a Sustainable Business Model" (sustainability-2358453) is, for sure, an innovative piece of research because of its particularly focussed object of research (i.e., fourth sector, Chile etc.).

My main concern is what I mostly call "lack of color", namely a lack of captivating data, tables, figures etc. In this specific regard, I feel that the authors could improve the paper significantly. For instance, why not adding a table containing some more data on sentences like: "As for Chile, the construction is one of the most critical industries of the national 117 economy. In the run-up to the Covid-19 pandemic, the construction industry meant 6.4% 118 of gross domestic product (GDP), beating the OECD average level (5.2%) but lower than 119 the LAC level (7.3%). By 2018, 8.5% of those employed in the country worked in the con- 120 struction industry". This is relevant insofar the reasons for having opted for Chile. Is it because of the background of the authors involved or is it due to some specific trend concerning Chile? A comparative table/figure would be particularly helpful. 

I highly suggest to revise the paper from an "optical" point of view. Where could a particularly relevant argument be corroborated by some more data/a graph or table? Where would it not? My feeling is that, as soon as so specific topics/countries are involved, the background context should be particularly strengthened.

The English language should be also, here and there, revised. Some sentences are particularly long (even the title is, in my opinion, less effective than it could/should be). 

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer for his good comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors made a tremendous effort to address my comments so that it could be accepted for publication. 

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer 1 for the good comments and suggestions. 

Kind regards.