Exploring the Relationships among Internal Branding, Work Engagement, and Turnover Intention in Public Sports Organizations after the Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for allowing me to review “The Effect of Internal Branding in Public Sports Organizations on Turnover Intention after the COVID-19 Pandemic: Focusing on Mediating Effect of Work Engagement.”

I read this study carefully and have some advice to make it shine more. My advice is as follows.

 

- In the Abstract, "(3) Work engagement had a significant positive effect on turnover intention, and has been shown to partially mediate the relationship between organizational management culture and turnover intention. This study suggests that employees can differently perceive the effectiveness of organizational management culture and internal “communication within internal branding.” has different content from the hypothesis testing results of this study.

 

- Theoretical considerations suggest that work engagement comprises multiple dimensions, but why is it organized into a single size in this study? An explanation should be described in this regard.

 

- Based on previous studies, this study was set up from Hypotheses 1 to 3. Therefore, the basis for the mediating effect of work engagement is sufficient. Thus, the basis for Hypothesis 4 seems unnecessary.

 

- According to Table 4, H2-1 was adopted. However, the previous hypothesis was that "OMC of PSOs has a positive effect on the employees' TI." Therefore, the hypothesis was rejected.

 

- The discussion part of this study is mixed with practical implications. This needs to be corrected. Researchers should complement the poor 6.2 Management Applications part based on the content of the discussion part.

 

- The conclusion should be presented at the end and not simply describe the hypothesis results. Finally, researchers should reflect on the characteristics of Korea's organizational culture at the conclusion of this study.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First, I would like to thank the reviewer for the invitation and opportunity to review this work. Then, I would like to congratulate the authors for the work done and the topic's relevance.

The topic is relevant and very current. Internal branding is an emerging topic, but its study in sports organizations still receives little attention.

Regarding the title, it is too long, and due to its length, it loses attractiveness. I propose that authors revise it in order to make it more attractive to the reader.

The abstract is well prepared, containing all the necessary elements for a short presentation of the work. however, I ask you to check the following statement: "Internal branding is considered important for internalizing the organization's values and visions to its employees and managing human resources after COVID-19". The strength and relevance of Internal Branding were already known, studied, and widely reported before COVID-19. We must be careful and restrained in some of the statements.

In terms of theorizing, I highlight that (line 158/159) the author’s state: "For example, it was mentioned that organizational culture with active communication in sports organizations can lower the intention to turnover". Given this example and other examples, it is expected that the hypothesis put forward is that the increase in the internal communication variable is associated with a decrease in the intention to leave (i.e., expecting an effect that is negative, not in the qualitative sense of the effect, but in the quantitative sense of the effect). But despite the theorization they put forward in this direction, they say that "IC of PSOs has a positive effect on the employees' IT". Later in the analysis, it was found that the positive effect (H2-2. IC ---> TI .417 .143 2.705 .007 Accepted), and the authors say they accept the hypothesis. Now there is an error here that must be corrected and taken care of, either to alter the argument, or to alter the hypothesis put forward and subsequently to accept it.

In methodological terms there is a question that has to be asked, are the authors really talking about internal branding? Why not use an internal branding scale since there are scales in the international literature? By using the measurement of two other constructs, does it make sense to focus the work on internal branding when at the same time this construct is actually measured? Since it is not possible to go back and collect data with an internal branding scale, I propose that authors can check the scope of their work and reflect on whether they should keep internal branding at the center.  In the same way, are there work engagement scales that are properly validated? Why not use scales consolidated in the literature?

With regard to data analysis, the issue lies in the non-use of sociodemographic and professional variables, when in the limitations, the authors themselves state that they can have an impact. If they have them, why have they not used them? Certainly, they could contribute to a better understanding of the results obtained, especially the more controversial results.

In this study, internal communication leads to increased exit intention and decreased work engagement. This is controversial with the existing literature. I would like to see these results more explored and justified and, for example, for the authors to consider the possibility of the results depending on the selected items. All explanations of theoretical or methodological orientation should be put on the table. Perhaps the sociodemographic variables here could make an interesting contribution.

Finally, the authors use a vast literature review with 123 peer-reviewed papers, but the percentages of indexed scientific articles from the last 5 years are small.

 

I hope that the observations and comments presented can contribute to effectively improving the work presented. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Several modification are necessary:

Where are all the questions? I assume some of them are in table 2, but are they all of them? Please state more clearly

Line 180- voluntary

Line 182- as a continuous

Table 1 is not looking as it should...some data is outside of it. Please fix it

Please add table 5 after the explanations. It is currently in the middle of the information. The information is not easy to follow in this way. Please move it!

Line 264-265- some information is not correct here or the words are mixed up. Fix this please!

Where is the explanation of the difference of sex in IB, WE or TI. Women are usually less paid for the same job. Most of the responses were from men. Does this affect your study in any way? Does the position held in the company affect the employee TI and WE? Does the age influence your findings?

Please add a short explanation for each of the questions above! If they were not included in the research part than please state that. You have the information in the first table and, naturally, people will want to see some results regarding that data. You only added something corelated in the conclusion part.  

Line 501- the information in the two sentences contradicts

Less than half of the references are from the last 10 years. Please add a couple more reference from the last 10 years!

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf