The Role of Employee Empowerment in Supporting Accounting Information Systems Outcomes: A Mediated Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In fact, this will be a risky revision, as comments have raised some important concerns. Thus, I think the following comments will make it better and more robust.

1. The title can be made shorter and more concise. 

2. What are your theoretical contributions?

3.  As far as I have seen in the abstract, "SPSS was used in order to screen and analyze gathered primary data, and it was seen that management awareness mediated the relationship between employee empowerment and AIS", could you please check it again? 

4. In fact, the introduction is unfairly drafted. The research motivation is still not clear. So, please add one paragraph related to research motivation in the introduction.

5. Also, the author(s) should pay attention to writing the research questions and research objective/s accordingly in the introduction section.

6. Please use the abbreviation once introduced. For instance, (AIS) for (Accounting Information Systems).

7. please redraw the study model "Figure 1" correctly. 

8. Methodology: The sampling technique is not clear and should be discussed in this section.

9. Please try to restructure the research discussion in a separate section on research implications. The current writing is not well structured.

10. Along the same lines, it is necessary to mention the research conclusion, limitations and recommendations in a separate section. 

11. Finally, please improve the language of the research paper.

I hope that my comments can help you to improve your manuscript.

Author Response

1. title was shortened 

2. theoretical contribution was added after the conclusion

3. abstract was revised accordingly 

4.  motivation of study was added at the end of the introduction 

5. study questions and objectives were added at the end of the introduction 

6. abbreviations are already highlighted 

7. sampling technique was highlighted 

8. discussion was restructured 

9. conclusion, recommendations and theoretical contribution were separated and numbered 

10. limitations of study were added accordingly 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editor,

Thank you for allowing me to review this paper. The initial idea is quite interesting and perhaps deserves to be explored. Still, the article has many critical issues and does not seem to align with the Journal's standards. I indicate below the main criticalities identified.

- It is not clear why the study focuses on banks. The authors do not clarify which are the specificities of the banks that should make the results valuable and replicable/adaptable to other types of companies

- line 172: reference is made to social impact accounting, but in the literature analysis and the introduction or settlement of the problem, reference is never made to social impact accounting. It is not clear what value it has for research.

- The authors do not clarify the research objective and questions.

- Table 5 is incomprehensible. What indicators are detected? What use did they have in previous studies? Integrating the literature and better clarifying the use of the indicators mentioned in the previous literature is necessary.

- The connection between table 5 and the following (without a number) is unclear.

- The connection between the conclusions and the literature used is missing. Therefore, it is unclear how much the study offers an innovative contribution to the existing literature.

- Finally, the paper does not meet the standards of the Journal. I don't know if the editorial style has changed, but I remember that Sustainability asks for a different system of citations in the text. Update as appropriate.

Author Response

1. the reason for choosing the banking sector was highlighted in the motivation of study in line 75
2. the reference was used for adding information regarding AIS from an organizational perspective 
3. research objectives and questions were added at the end of the introduction lines 97-105
4. table 5 is for testing the fit in the model, it refers to the good relationship between variables of study in addition to the sub-variables, the table isn't related to the literature review, it an outcomes of SPSS used 
5. as in the previous point, the table 5 highlighted the relationship between variables that were responsible for developing the hypotheses of the study 
6. the results and discussion were separated for more connections to appear, in addition to that, the relationship was highlighted by referring to the previous studies which reached nearly or almost the same conclusion, the literature review was to refer to the main points of the study, while the section (previous studies) is the main section from which hypotheses were built 
7. structure of the paper was applied accordingly 
8.  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

1. long title, does not give an understanding of the essence of the article.

2. the abstract does not disclose the achievements of the study, add what was achieved thanks to the study

3. well described introduction and problem

4. I would especially like to note the successful analysis of the literature, modern.

5. the hypothesis and the result reveal the content and correspond to the research topic.

Author Response

1. the title was shortened
2. abstract was modified through the motivation of the study
3. introduction and problem was restructured and highlighted in line 97-105
4. discussion, conclusion, recommendations and limitations were separated in order to achieve that 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

*Please avoid the long title.

*Again, please use the abbreviation once introduced.  For example, you wrote "Accounting Information Systems" five times in the introduction part only. 

 *  The researcher(s) should pay attention to the research gap that is still not sufficient. Therefore, please add more arguments related to the research gap in the introduction.

* research motivation still needs further development. 

*Again, please redraw the study model "Figure 1" correctly. 

*Please move table 4 "Table 4. Questionnaire Descriptive Statistics" to the end of the paper as an appendix. 

I think if the researcher wants the results to be convincing, the methodology should be further developed. 

*Please try to restructure the "conclusion and discussion" part, the research discussion should be in a separate section on the research conclusion. 

*Along the same lines, limitations and future scope are described too sketchy. 

I hope that my comments can help you to improve your manuscript.

Author Response

Full term was introduced only once, in the rest of the article AIS was used 

Literary gap was added at the end of the introduction

Motivation of study was further developed 

model was redrawn

Table 4 was moved to the end of the paper 

there is a total of 1000 words describing methods of study in detail and contains all the needed information, there is no space for further development

Discussion is presented in a separate part in which results of testing hypotheses were presented, the conclusion appeared in a totally separate section and they weren't attached in the first place 

Limitation and future scope was done according to results that were reached, which are exhaustive rather than sketchy 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I greatly appreciate the revisions you have made to your work. I find it more precise, and the critical issues I noted have been removed.

Good luck with your work.

Author Response

Full term was introduced only once, in the rest of the article AIS was used 

Literary gap was added at the end of the introduction

Motivation of study was further developed 

model was redrawn

Table 4 was moved to the end of the paper 

there is a total of 1000 words describing methods of study in detail and contains all the needed information, there is no space for further development

Discussion is presented in a separate part in which results of testing hypotheses were presented, the conclusion appeared in a totally separate section and they weren't attached in the first place 

Limitation and future scope was done according to results that were reached, which are exhaustive rather than sketchy 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for revising the manuscript thoroughly and addressing many of my concerns. The manuscript has been improved a lot. Good job. In fact, I reserve some minor concerns related to the title.

The title can be made short and more relevant e.g., "The Role of Employee Empowerment in Supporting Accounting Information Systems Outcomes: A Mediated Model". 

In addition, updated references are ignored. So, please update the references in the paper by including  8 to 10 latest references (2020 to 2023) from well-known journals in the field and relevant extracts from them. 

Author Response

1. the title has been taken as suggested: "The Role of Employee Empowerment in Supporting Accounting Information Systems Outcomes: A Mediated Model", other reviewers had different responses and the opinions are contradicting
2. More references were added as suggested  

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf