Corporate Social Responsibility and the Willingness to Eco-Innovate among Chilean Firms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for inviting me to review the manuscript [sustainability-2420212] entitled “Corporate social responsibility and the willingness to eco-innovate among Chilean firms.”

Introduction – The way the introduction is written is more like an extended abstract. It has the background to the study, methods, results and implications of the study. There is a need to differentiate the contents of the abstract and introduction. Also, include research question/s, this will be helpful to emphasize the focus of the study.

Literature – Authors can develop hypotheses for the study. This will help readers to understand the results shown in Tables 2 and 3 as well as to appreciate the models discussed in the methods section.

Materials and Methods – It will help readers to understand what is going on if models developed in lines 156-207 are guided by hypotheses/proposition.

Results – Line 215 indicates 25.8%, I am not able to find this figure in Table 1. Lines 239,242, and 291 should read CSR and not CRS. Line 221 indicate Table A2, I have not seen Table 2.

Limitations and future areas of study – Authors can discuss the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.

 

Minor editing required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to say thanks to the authors for the excellent research and even more for the excellent presentation of its results. The article is written according to all the requirements for a manuscript for publication in rating journals, it is written so well that you can clearly see the logic of the study, the methodology is described in detail; the conclusions are logical and are based on the conducted research; the authors did an excellent job of presenting the limitations to the study and the way forward for further research.

Nevertheless, I would like to suggest several ways to improve the manuscript:

Point 1: Literature review is sufficient; however, there is a lack of recent research on this topic (2022-2023), for ex. you can use this one https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136317

Point 2: underline article limitation as a separate section

 

Point 3: also in the Results & Discussion section, add a comparison with existing studies, in which it is necessary to emphasize the novelty of the study and its practical / theoretical / methodological contribution and highlighting how the author's research differs from them 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Article	Sustainability
Submission ID	Sustainability-2420212
Title	Corporate social responsibility and the willingness to eco-innovate among Chilean firms.

 

The paper examines the effect of CSR in the willingness to allocate resources of companies that resides in a developing country. The paper highlights the implications that financial and environmental forms of CSR affects the adoption of eco-innovation but the social aspects of CSE has the effect sole effect on the amount spent by firms on eco-innovation. . The manuscript introduces an insightful notion that social dimensions of CSE acts as a complement to other forms. The following points outline certain recommendations for the paper. These concerns and issues (in chronological order) are outlined below:

Points:

1.	Introduction (Lines 47-48).  You need to motivate why the context of a developing country will have different effects from others. Is there a reason to expect differences between a developing and developed country?
2.	Literature Review (Sections). Might be useful to adopt sub-sections here between the literature on (i) eco-innovation, (ii) government regulations, (iii) CSR and (iv) the interrelations between these aspects. At this juncture, the literature review is scant and does not adequately motivate your theoretical contributions, the mechanism, and hypotheses.
3.	Hypothesis, Arguments and Mechanisms. Is there a reason why no formal hypotheses were developed? Doing so will have elucidate and identify the paper’s contribution to the existing literature. What are some of your expected results from the literature?
4.	Theoretical Development. You have some critical variables and results explored but these have not been adequately developed in  the literature review. A more substantive literature review, formal arguments and mechanisms will help anchor the framing of the paper and its contributions.
5.	Methodology. You should provide additional information on these firm-level data. What information was collected and how? For instance: What types of firms / industries were included? Was the survey voluntary? What was the response rates? What scales were used in the survey - likert, opened etc.? The statement that “...sought to gather firm-level data regarding companies’ characterises and their business environment for years 2016 and 2017” is too vague.
6.	Methodology - Variables. Why are these variables included in your model? While I understand that these are some of the common firm-level controls, you should motivate and explain your model both theoretically and empirically to a larger extent.
7.	Methodology - Measures. These are crude measures based on self-reports from a single survey. Perhaps you should check and supplement these proxy measures with more objective secondary sources for a more robust empirical result.
8.	Materials and Methods. I believe it will be helpful to have a separate section for your data/background and model/methodology. Additionally, do highlight the various measurements for each critical construct – at this juncture, it is not entirely clear how your constructs are measured.
9.	Results. Interesting results. Do refer to point 4, further a prior development of mechanisms and arguments could help elucidate the theoretical contribution and the meaning of the empirical results.

 

I am thankful and honoured for the opportunity to read your manuscript. The paper potentially serves to illuminate the importance and nuances of CSR dimensions and eco-innovation. I sincerely hope you will find my comments. I wish you all the best in pursuing this line of work.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Article	Sustainability
Submission ID	Sustainability-2420212
Title	Corporate social responsibility and the willingness to eco-innovate among Chilean firms.

 

Thank you for the revision. The revised manuscript addressed the main concerns with the motivation and theoretical development. The revised manuscript developed and engaged with most of the issues mentioned and clarified the paper’s framing, arguments, mechanisms, and methodological clarity. Thank you for the hard work in addressing the concerns with the revisions. No other concerns remain on my end. The paper will certainly be an invaluable contribution toward extending the literature on CSR in developing contexts.