Association between Earnings Announcement Behaviors and ESG Performances
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper entitled "Association between Earnings Announcement Behaviors and ESG Performances" aims to investigate whether managerial opportunism as revealed by earnings announcement behaviors can be utilized as a hallmark to forecast the quality of ESG performance.
The paper is interesting since it deals with a topic which is in the spotlight of several researchers.
However, the following major amendments must be addressed before the paper can be published.
1. The results summary must be deleted from the paper's Introduction.
2. The aim and the objectives of the paper must be highlighted and supported using the relevant literature in the Introduction section.
3. The rationale of the research (both managerial and theoretical) must be supported in the paper's Introduction as well.
4. The paper's literature must be strengthened by using several and recently-published papers to support the research hypotheses; a sub-section of literature is needed for every single hypothesis.
5. The paper's data seem to be fairly outdated (examined period is between 2012 and 2018). The authors must add an explanation on how they have dealt with this problem; furthermore they must refer to possible research errors deriving from this sample and the possible remedies they have used to deal with them.
6. The paper's conclusion must be further supported. The authros must add a critical discussion on their results based on relevant cases (either including ESG or inculding separate components of ESG) so as to sharpen and furhter support them. To do so, the following papers can be used:
a. Delegkos, A. E., Skordoulis, M., Kalantonis, P., & Xanthopoulou, A. (2022). Integrated Reporting and Value Relevance in the Energy Sector: The Case of European Listed Firms. Energies, 15(22), 8435.
b. Velte, P. (2019). The bidirectional relationship between ESG performance and earnings management–empirical evidence from Germany. Journal of Global Responsibility, 10(4), 322-338.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript.
Overall, I think your manuscript aims to answer an interesting research question. However, the paper lacks a strong theoretical framework, and the empirical setting is not sold. Therefore, I would suggest you consider the following comments to make the paper more solid.
Sample selection and description
1. Page 5: your sample includes 17,370 firm quarters, but it remains unclear how many unique firms are in your sample. This information is important for a better understanding of your sample selection.
2. How your descriptive statistics of key variables (ESG, AC, etc) are comparable with prior studies? Any comparison would be highly recommended.
Table and results
3. Table 4 and Table 5. These two tables employ different model estimations (e.g., different key variables, etc), but I wonder why the R-squares remain the same across the two tables. The authors need to double-check if there are any typos or empirical errors.
4. I do not see the authors considering any tests to mitigate endogeneity concerns. For example, the role of corporate governance can be important in both ESG strategies and Earnings announcement practices. How do the authors account for other alternative explanations?
5. I do not see any clear theoretical framework that underlies the documented relationship. Please consider it in your revised manuscript.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have adequately addressed all the issues raised by the reviewers. As far as it is concerned, the paper is now eligible for publication.
Author Response
Thank you for your good review comments on our paper. Your meticulous review of the paper has helped improve the quality of the paper.
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for submitting the revised manuscript. I believe this paper has been significantly improved. Congratulations to the authors for their good work.
Author Response
Thank you for your good review comments on our paper. Your meticulous review of the paper has helped improve the quality of the paper.
