Board Characteristics and Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please find my comments as attached.

Thanks and Regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We appreciate the effort and time spent by you and the reviewers to provide useful feedback on our manuscript. “Board Characteristics and Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies” 

Thank you.

Best regards,

Emmanuel Anyigbah

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks to the editors for giving me the opportunity to review this paper. I have identified some issues to improve the quality of the paper for publication:

·         The paper could benefit from proofreading and editing.

·         The references need to be written based on the journal style.

·         The authors may transfer the theory section to be a separate section before literature and hypotheses.

·         More about why the Chinese context is chosen is required in the introduction.

·         Section 2.1 may be moved as a separate section as a contextual and institutional background of the study with more discussion about the context under study and the CG rules applied therein.

The use of 2021 and 2021 references is needed (update the literature section)

·         The study’s findings implications should be outlined in the abstract and the introduction section.

·         The study limitations need to be mentioned in the conclusion section.

·         The authors need to use and cite more recent research, especially research in developing countries such as:

Aliyu, U. S. (2018). Board characteristic and corporate environmental reporting in Nigeria. Asian Journal of Accounting Research.

Riyadh, H. A., Sukoharsono, E. G., & Alfaiza, S. A. (2019). The impact of corporate social responsibility disclosure and board characteristics on corporate performance. Cogent Business & Management, 6(1), 1647917.

Aboud, A., & Diab, A. (2022). Ownership Characteristics and Financial Performance: Evidence from Chinese Split-Share Structure Reform. Sustainability, 14(12), 7240.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

 Thanks for the effort and time spent by you and the reviewers to provide useful feedback on our manuscript. “Board Characteristics and Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies”

Thank you.

Best regards,

Emmanuel Anyigbah

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript shows a deep and thorough statistical analysis, but I do not think that this is enough for a good paper. The text is quite long, including equations and detailed tables of the analysis. The research question is important, the framework model is well-built, except for one issue. Measuring CSR reporting through a quantitative approach is limited. I can accept it, but more explanation is required, and a clear note of the limitation (limitations are generally missing).

The discussion is missing; maybe some parts of the literature review could be used for building some discussions. Conclusions are short and weak. Despite the values and benefits of the analysis, I cannot recommend the publication of the paper in this journal because its impact and broader applicability are very limited in the present form. I suggest giving more emphasis on the lessons learned and implications or preparing a text focusing on the broad applicability of the methodology.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

The authors are Thankful for the effort and time spent by you and the reviewers to provide useful feedback on our manuscript. “Board Characteristics and Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies”

Thank you.

Best regards,

Emmanuel Anyigbah

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Well done, Congratulation no your effort 

Reviewer 3 Report

I maintain my opinion about the benefits of the paper and the deep analysis. The authors show a thorough statistical application. The authors presented a remarkably improved version of the text, giving a response to the main critical point of the review. The abstract and the literature review are extended, and the discussion is added. The message of the paper is now highlighted, the conclusions are supported by the previous sections. Although I do not feel the detailed presentation of the calculation, some of these could be moved to an appendix, the manuscript is comprehensive, I can accept the present structure.

I have no further requests to the authors; I can recommend the publication.