Assessing the Sustainability of Construction Companies in the Digital Context: An Econometric Approach Based on Financial, Social, and Environmental Indicators

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. the study focuses only on Romanian construction companies and does not verify the applicability of the model in other countries or institutional contexts, limiting the generalisability of the findings.
2. some indicators have low interpretable power (e.g. R² >0.005), and existing proxy variables omit key factors such as employee turnover, investment in training, and community involvement.
3. The title emphasises the ‘digital context’, but the role of digital technologies in sustainability is not sufficiently analysed throughout the paper.
4. The environmental indicators do not directly reflect the environmental impact of the enterprise, and adjustments to these indicators could be considered.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article with the title "Assessing the sustainability of construction companies in digital context: An econometric approach based on financial, social, and environmental indicators" presents an interesting research idea in a ​​interest field [sustainability of construction companies]. However i have some weak points to note, as follows:

• the paper title should be reconsidered;
• the "Introduction" section is to brief for clarity; must be improved substantially;
• it would be advisable for the authors (maybe) to re-analyze the article purpose;
• in "2. Literature review" section although the bibliometric analysis (operated with the VOSviewer software) appears to be representative, it does not discuss in any way the intrinsic limitations of such an evaluation (e.g. the risk that the relevance of some topics is overestimated due to the frequency of occurrence of current terms in use). The selection criteria and the details of the filtering and inclusion/exclusion process associated to the articles used are not clearly presented. Not enough details are provided about the parameters used in VOSviewer software (e.g. term co-occurrence thresholds, data normalization type, ...). There is no comparison of the results obtained from the bibliometric analysis with the results of other scientific studies;
• also within the paper section "2. Literature review" the reasoning is superficial. Only a few scientific articles are used to build/support the scientific construct [but without "forgetting" the central idea of ​​this research]. This section, which should create the theoretical premises for conducting research, needs to be substantially improved - maybe it would be better to rewrite it (plus, based on this section, the research hypotheses are developed - hypotheses that are currently poorly substantiated and placed in the article);
• in "3. Materials and Methods" [3.1. Research Design] paper section the authors say "In the first stage, a comprehensive documentary analysis examined existing theoretical frameworks and empirical models related to corporate performance and sustainability assessment. This phase synthesized a wide array of contributions from literature, covering econometric models, performance indicators, and sustainability measurement standards"  - where is it in the paper?  also "The second stage focused .... " the same question, and so on; I would recommend that the authors to reconsider/rewrite the methodological approach of this article [not clear/ substantial improvement and associated clarification are mandatory];
• the "3.3. Research Hypotheses" content are based on what?
• also for "3. Materials and Methods" paper section there is a lack of a clear presentation/justification associated with the criteria used in the selection and weighting of indicators. Why were certain indicators chosen and why are they relevant for the construction sector?
• it can be appreciated that the proposed model has a reduced capacity to explain the social score variability; it would be advisable to introduce additional variables;
• the research results should be compared/related ["5. Discussion"] to other results from the literature much more detailed and in-depth;
• research limitations must be detailed and clarified;
• insufficient bibliography; the "References" section must be improved substantially;
• an so on.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is a qualitative and large-scale study devoted to the development of a comprehensive model for assessing the sustainable development of construction companies in a digital context using Romania as an example. The work responds to current challenges in the field of corporate sustainability, especially in light of the requirements of the CSRD and ESRS.
Positive aspects of the article:
1) Relevance of the topic and originality of the approach. The construction sector has a significant impact on the environment, and despite this, it is often outside the focus of empirical research.
2) Sound methodology. The use of a multivariate composite index based on financial, social and environmental indicators allows for an objective assessment of sustainability.
3) The use of econometric models and statistical tests, including OLS models, testing for multicollinearity, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation, ensures the reliability of the results.
4) A large sample (1600 companies over 10 years) and the use of Jenks natural breaks to categorize the level of sustainability.
5) The model complies with European regulatory requirements (CSRD, ESRS), which makes it potentially applicable in other EU countries.
Comments and suggestions:
1) The social dimension of the model requires further development. The presented indicators (number of employees and labor productivity) have low explanatory power. It is worth considering including variables such as staff turnover, training costs, engagement index, etc.
2) The Jenks method for categorizing sustainability should be described in more detail and the choice of weights between financial, social and environmental components (40/30/30) should be justified.
3) The authors use only data from companies in Romania. This limits the generalizability of the results. It would be desirable to add a comparison with data from other countries to increase the external validity of the model.
4) Despite the extensive bibliometrics, the text does not always clearly show how exactly the identified literature clusters formed the basis for formulating the hypotheses and constructing the model.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf