Aligning Stakeholders and Actors: A New Safety and Security-Based Design Approach for Major National Infrastructures

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

For the further improvement of the manuscript, the authors must include the following comments in the revisions:

·        The specific research conclusions and the contribution of this paper are not clearly presented in the abstract.

·        There are two categories of stakeholders, internal and external stakeholders. “Stakeholders can be categorized into internal and external stakeholders (Maignan, Ferrell, & Ferrell, 2005). Internal stakeholders help with organizational efficiency through production decisions. In contrast, external stakeholders help in aiding the organizational effectiveness through participative decision making, which involves an evaluation of the organization’s legitimacy and the supply of resources to the organization (Fanelli & Misangyi, 2006). The innovation of this paper should be emphasized, if the authors could further explain the specific role of stakeholders in the scope of the undertaken research.

·        Figure No. 6 is not clear for a better understanding of the discussion.  

·        The results and discussion section could be more organized, easier to follow, and highlight the contributions to this paper. 

Author Response

Authors' responses

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for his good review and comments on what can be improved in the article. See the response from the authors here below:

1. Comment: Improve abstract – conclusion and contribution better introduced.

Response: The abstract has been rewritten w.r.t. to comments from reviewer. 

2. Comment: Explain better the specific role of stakeholders, internal and external.

Response: A very good point from reviewer. A clause has been added on stakeholders and actors with references.

3. Comment: Explain and discuss Figure 6 in Discussion section.

Response: The Discussion section has been rewritten, among other things to explain Figure 6.

4. Comment: Highlight main contribution in results and discussion – organize better.

Response: The Discussion section has been rewritten to summarize and better explain the results. Also, a clause has been added to clarify Figure 6.

Reviewer 2 Report

Topic of this paper is interesting as authors aim to overcome disadvantages of available risk management methods. The main problem of this manuscript is its structure, which is not easy to follow. Abstract should be better structured in manner that topic is better introduced. Introduction section is to wide and not clear. The part introduction should be followed by the previous research section. The previous research should be written clearly, in manner that reader easily comes to the point, with more referenced cited. After that authors should introduce the problem and give diagram how it could be solved. Finally, case study could be given. After that discussion is needed and finally conclusions could be presented. Beside future research, limitations should be given. Also, in lines 122-123 is written "The authors’ motivation for this study furthermore origins in decades of experience applying ISO standards in ISO certified risk management systems, as project managers, as directors, and as internal and external auditors.". The question is which standards, ISO standards are numerous, while ISO 31000 is not standard under certification, directors and auditors are on different sides, etc. Similar problem is evidenced later in lines 869-870, where is written ". Application of ISO standards is the demand of many investors that want to invest in "green" and environmentally friendly projects of this kind.", so authors are advised to pay more attention to certification matters and give exact information about standard - with number. Also, there are issues with references, there are given old links which even do not work, which mast be updated.

Author Response

Authors' responses

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for his good review and comments on what can be improved in the article. See the response from the authors here below:

1. Comment: Improve abstract (structure) – topic better introduced.
   Response: The abstract has been rewritten w.r.t. to comments from reviewer.

2. Comment: After the introduction section should come a section on previous research.
   Response: In this study many academic fields are touched upon, including safety science, risk analysis, project management, stakeholder theory, systems theory, and social science. The focus and the common thread in this study is the application of new analysis methodology and tools for solving the research objectives and testing them on the example of a specific project, the WtE infrastructure project. The authors have considered many ways to structure the content of this article and disseminate its content and think the structure of the article is appropriate. 

3. Comment: Restructure manuscript.
   Response: Many changes have been made to the manuscript. Clauses have been added about stakeholders and actors in the introduction section. The discussion section has been rewritten to summarize and better explain the results. A clause has been added to the discussion section explaining Figure 6. Also, changes have been made to the conclusion section. A clause has been added on limitations of the study, the findings, and the scientific contribution. 

4. Comment: Name ISO standards.
   Response: Names and references have been added to ISO standards. The requirements come from investors, e.g., pension funds in Iceland that are interested in green projects but want to ensure transparency through ISO audits and certificates. The ISO Management System Standards provide requirements for auditors, both internal and external auditors. 

5. Comment: Check all links and references (some are old and do not work).
   Response: A mistake happened when the article was transferred to the Sustainability manuscript format. The authors apologize for that. Some references got mixed up, e.g. table numbers. This has been checked in this revised draft of the manuscript. The authors believe that this has now been fixed.

Reviewer 3 Report

The presented research is characterized by a high level of relevance, touches on important theoretical issues, and practical objectives that relate to the scope of the journal. The study presents new scientific results that can be further developed in scientific papers and can also be applied in practice. This is exactly the case when the proposed and justified methodology can be sufficiently fully implemented in practice. At the same time, there are a number of controversial points in the work that should be taken into account and that are worth paying attention to. It seems advisable to strengthen the logical sequence of the presentation of the material and provide some clarification of the structure of the work. At the moment, the introduction section contains detailed information, some of which is more relevant in its content to a literary review, a description of the project, or a research methodology. The title of the article is "Aligning Stakeholders and Actors..."; however, the study mainly talks about stakeholders; actors appear much less frequently. More attention should be paid to the differentiation of stakeholders and actors and their interactions. The purpose of the study raises a question. Firstly, it is formulated differently in different sections of the article. Secondly, with regard to the article, it seems reasonable to talk about the proposal of a new methodology and tools for solving the research objectives and testing them on the example of a specific project, and not just about studying a specific project. In addition, the authors propose a new interesting methodology reflecting a combination of tools that allow solving the objectives set in the work. It should also be noted that there are questions about links to sources of information and data, or references. It is not recommended to refer to Wikipedia in a scientific article. In addition, not all figures or the methods given have links to information sources (for example, Figure 2, etc.). In addition, the text of the article contains voluminous tables, for example, table 3. It makes sense to visually correct it or take it outside the main text of the work. I would also like to draw attention to the fact that the roles and responsibilities of some stakeholders in Table 2 are debatable. For example, the role of parties in the labor market is "Preserve peace in the labor market." But the labor market is represented by different parties with different interests. It is not entirely clear what kind of preservation of peace we are talking about here. As a small technical point, it is worth noting that the authors cite abbreviations in the text without their preliminary interpretation in the text. For example, STAMP. In addition, a number of abbreviations (not widely used) are given in keywords. Despite the above remarks, the study contains many important and interesting results, is characterized by original logic, and meets the requirements for scientific research.

Author Response

Authors' responses

The authors would like to thank the reviewer for his good review and comments on what can be improved in the article. See the response from the authors here below:

1. Comment: Strengthen the logical sequence of the presentation of the material and provide some clarification of the structure of the work.
   Response: The manuscript has been changed with regard to the logical sequence of the presentation of the work. The structure of the article has been changed and sections added to provide better clarification of the work. One table was deleted from the Results section and reference made to Table 9 in Appendix III.

2. Comment: The introduction section contains detailed information, some of which is more relevant in its content to a literary review, a description of the project, or a research methodology.
   Response: In this study, many academic fields are mentioned, i.a., safety science, risk analysis, project management, stakeholder theory, systems theory, and social science. The focus is however on the STAMP/STPA/STECA analysis approach in a WtE project. The authors think that basic information must be provided regarding, e.g., safety and security-based Design (SbD) and stakeholder theory (that has been added in this revised manuscript). The focus is however put on scientific literature on WtE and STAMP, STPA and STECA. Therefore, the literature review focuses on these two research fields. 

3. Comment: More attention should be paid to the differentiation of stakeholders and actors and their interactions.
   Response: A very good point from reviewer. A clause has been added on stakeholders and actors with references.

4. Comment: Talk about the proposal of a new methodology and tools for solving the research objectives and testing them on the example of a specific project, and not just about studying a specific project.
   Response: This is a very good point. The first paragraph of the Introduction section has been changed w.r.t. the comment. Text has also been changed elsewhere considering this, e.g. in the Discussion section. 

5. Comment: It is not recommended to refer to Wikipedia in a scientific article.
   Response: It was a mistake to put references from Wikipedia. These references have been changed or deleted. Now there is no reference to Wikipedia in the manuscript. 

6. Comment: Figure - add link to sources (Fig. 2, ..)
   Response: Some figures have been changed. One figure, Figure 1, is presented with permission from IEEE. Other figures are specially created for this article and references are made in text where appropriate. Figure 5 and 6 do not need references.

7. Comment: Table 3 – put it in appendix.
   Response: An error occurred when the article was transferred to the sustainability template. Then some table numbers got confused. Table 3 in the manuscript should have been Table 7. This table has been deleted from the results section and instead a reference made to Table 9 in Appendix III. 

8. Comment: Explain labor market role and responsibility.
   Response: The role of the labor market became an issue with the stakeholders during the research. Some stakeholders consider it one of the major risk factors in the study because of serious strikes in Iceland in years 2021, 2022 and 2023. Many consider it the labor market’s responsibility not to jeopardize an important infrastructure project like this one with strikes and think solidarity is needed. The labor market has however legal right to go on strike. 

9. Comment: Note, if cite abbreviations in the text without their preliminary interpretation in the text. For example, STAMP. In addition, a number of abbreviations (not widely used) are given in keywords.
   Response: It was a mistake to use abbreviations from the beginning without their preliminary interpretation in the text. This has been fixed.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is improved, and all omissions are corrected. My only recommendation is to delete the word risk in line 167. Publication is recommended.