How Enterprise Resilience Affects Enterprise Sustainable Development—Empirical Evidence from Listed Companies in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The abstract does not meet the journal required, re write in structured format, also some important areas are missing in the abstract, that need to be added for example, objectives, problem or issue understudy, method and materials, contributions, limitations, implications, etc.

2. clearly give problem statement and research gaps in the introductory section, the article lack these two significant aspects.

3. In the literature review section, material is dumped thoughtlessly, make you discussion based on global variables, local variables, attributes, and elements, and develop a relationship between the variables that will lead to development of research model and construction of hypotheses.

4. The empirical result section seem to be appropriate but long discussion is not required here, rather, give just brief explanation of results, and add a separate section on discussion for the major findings and build your argument, how this study is unique and different from the from studies, and what are its major theoretical and practical contributions.

5. The study lack theoretical framework, its schematic diagram and hypotheses, add these at the end of literature review.

6. Add sections on limitations, delimitations, contributions, and future research directions after the conclusion section and reflect them briefly in abstract and introduction.

7. There is long list of references but most of them are not cited in the text for example, Reference no 20, re check and deleted that are not cited20.

A. Modelling Barriers to the Adoption of Industrial Sustainability Measures. J. Cleaner Prod. 2017, 638
168, 1482–1504, doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.07.244.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review the manuscript and suggest changes. We agree that the structure and completeness of content, logic and readability of the paper will be greatly improved by making the revisions you have suggested. Thank you again for your help with this paper. Here are our responses to each comment.

Comments 1: The abstract does not meet the journal required, re write in structured format, also some important areas are missing in the abstract, that need to be added for example, objectives, problem or issue understudy, method and materials, contributions, limitations, implications, etc.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your suggestions, after seeing the suggestions you made, we reread the abstract and revised some of the content, the specific changes are marked in red color in the manuscript. Please review it.

Comments 2: clearly give problem statement and research gaps in the introductory section, the article lack these two significant aspects.

Response 2: With reference to the suggestions you have made, in the introduction section, we first introduce the main problem of the study and why this study is important, and also show the possible marginal contributions of this paper from both the economic consequences of resilience and the mechanistic tests. The corresponding revisions have been marked in red font in the revised manuscript for your review.

Comments 3: In the literature review section, material is dumped thoughtlessly, make you discussion based on global variables, local variables, attributes, and elements, and develop a relationship between the variables that will lead to development of research model and construction of hypotheses.

Response 3: Thank you very much for your comments. In the manuscript, we present the literature review and research hypotheses in two parts, drawing on existing research practices. The original purpose of presenting the literature review separately is to enable readers to have a clearer understanding of the research related to enterprise resilience and enterprise sustainable development, so in the literature review section, we introduced and synthesized three aspects, the definition of variables, the indicator measurements of variables, the influencing factors and the economic consequences. After understanding the current research status in the existing field, we found that there is no literature that integrates the study of enterprise resilience and enterprise sustainable development, so we refer to the risk management theory, credit rationing theory, resource base theory, etc. to try to analyze the role of enterprise resilience to influence the role of the path of enterprise sustainable development and put forward the corresponding hypotheses. The specific contents are the second part of the literature review(Starts on page 2, line 81), the third part of the theoretical analysis and research hypotheses (including direct effect analysis and indirect effect analysis) (Beginning on page 5, line 181).

Comments 4: The empirical result section seem to be appropriate but long discussion is not required here, rather, give just brief explanation of results, and add a separate section on discussion for the major findings and build your argument, how this study is unique and different from the from studies, and what are its major theoretical and practical contributions.

Response 4: With reference to your suggestions and the practice of most of the studies, we firstly deleted the unnecessary analyses in the baseline regression, and at the same time made corresponding modifications to the content of the manuscript in finally part: firstly, we added a part of the discussion, in which we mainly emphasized and clarified the differences between the present study and the existing ones, and demonstrated the theoretical and practical contributions, and then we added a part of the main conclusions of the study. Secondly, after the main conclusions, we added the shortcomings of this study and the possible future research directions. The changes have been marked in red for your review.

Comments 5: The study lack theoretical framework, its schematic diagram and hypotheses, add these at the end of literature review.

Response 5: Thank you very much for your suggestion, in fact, in the later part of the literature review, that is, the third part of the manuscript, we proposed the corresponding hypotheses (both direct effects analysis and indirect effects analysis) based on the theoretical analysis, but we did not inscribe the schematic diagram of the hypotheses in the original manuscript. In the third part of the revised manuscript, we added a schematic of the research hypotheses based on the hypotheses proposed in the theoretical analysis. The schematic is located on page 9, line 331, for your review.

Comments 6: Add sections on limitations, delimitations, contributions, and future research directions after the conclusion section and reflect them briefly in abstract and introduction.

Response 6: Thank you very much for your suggestions, in the original manuscript we did not state the limitations of this study, but it does exist, such as the limitations of the research sample, using the sample of Chinese listed companies can not be a good response to the global enterprise resilience whether it can help enterprises to achieve sustainable development. Meanwhile, in the original manuscript, the core variables method was used to measure the resilience of enterprises, but the selection of indicators in this method is single, which cannot dynamically and comprehensively measure the real resilience of enterprises. In the revised manuscript we have clearly stated the limitations of this study and future research directions by drawing on most research practices, and changes have been marked in red in the revised manuscript for your review.

Comments 7: There is long list of references but most of them are not cited in the text for example, Reference no 20, re check and deleted that are not cited20.

Response 7: Thank you very much for your willingness to take the time to review the article. We have done a one-to-one correspondence of literature citations and their presentation in the references list. The citation format of the literature has been cited in accordance with the requirements of the Sustainability journal. We invite you to review it.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article titled “How Enterprise Resilience Affects Enterprise Sustainable Development – Empirical Evidence from Listed Companies in China” addresses a highly relevant topic in contemporary research: the relationship between enterprise resilience (En_RES) and long-term sustainable development (En_SD). The authors posit a primary hypothesis that enterprise resilience positively impacts sustainable development. Furthermore, they argue that this effect varies depending on the uncertainty of the external environment, supported by prior literature indicating that higher uncertainty diminishes the positive impact of resilience on sustainable development. Lastly, the study's third hypothesis suggests that greater resilience reduces the risk of business failure by mitigating operational risks, which in turn positively affects the cost of debt.

The subject matter is particularly pertinent in the current context, where the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a central focus of global research. However, the concept of sustainable development, given its multidimensional and abstract nature, demands precise analysis that considers the specific dimensions being addressed. This article makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing novel and relevant empirical evidence in the context of Chinese enterprises.

The theoretical framework presented in the article is robust and supported by an exhaustive review of current and relevant academic literature. The authors draw on well-established organizational theories and recent studies that validate their arguments. The use of credible sources and pertinent citations reinforces the validity and rigor of the proposed hypotheses.

Regarding the methodology, the study relies on data extracted from the renowned CSMAR database, ensuring the quality and reliability of the information used. The sample includes Chinese companies listed in the SP500 index with at least one year of market presence during the 2004–2022 period, totaling 3,619 observations. The authors ensure data integrity through cleaning techniques, such as 99% winsorization, to manage outliers and guarantee the robustness of the results. However, it is advisable for the authors to include additional information about the proportion of market capitalization represented by these companies within the SP500 index. This would allow for a more precise evaluation of the representativeness of the selected sample.

The statistical analysis is based on fixed-effects models with panel data, which is appropriate for capturing both temporal variability and firm-specific characteristics. Additionally, the authors implement various robustness tests to validate their findings:

Construction of an alternative proxy variable to measure resilience.

Assessment of the endogeneity of the variable of interest through a two-stage estimation method.

Mechanism analysis to explore the underlying relationships between variables.

The results are consistent and support the acceptance of the three initial hypotheses. However, the study could benefit from incorporating a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model with lags of the dependent variable as an additional robustness test. This approach would address potential endogeneity issues and further strengthen the validity of the results.

In summary, the article makes a valuable contribution to the study of enterprise resilience and its influence on sustainable development, particularly in a context marked by increasing global uncertainty and the prominence of the SDGs. The methodological rigor, quality of the data used, and thoroughness of the analysis reinforce the relevance of its findings.

However, to maximize the study’s academic and practical impact, two key improvements are suggested:

Include information on the market capitalization of the selected companies relative to the total SP500 index to assess their representativeness.

Incorporate a GMM model as an additional robustness test, which would further reinforce the validity of the conclusions.

With these enhancements, the article could achieve a higher standard of excellence and establish itself as a prominent reference in the field of research on enterprise sustainability.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your very constructive comments. After seeing the suggestions, we believe that the quality of the paper can be further improved by revising the article according to the suggestions made by the reviewers. Responses to each of the review comments are provided below.

Comments 1: Include information on the market capitalization of the selected companies relative to the total SP500 index to assess their representativeness.

Response 1: Thank you very much for asking this key issue. After searching for information, we found that the SP500 index is a stock index that records 500 listed companies in the United States, covering companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Exchange, etc. However, most of the data selected in the manuscript come from companies listed in China's Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and there is no intersection between the SP500 index and the data selected in this paper, which may be a regret of this paper, and the conclusions of this paper are only applicable to companies in China's context, and it may not be possible to give generalized conclusions and inferences for companies all over the world. That is why we have added the limitations of the study and possible future research directions in the last part of the manuscript (page 21, starting at line 655). For example, if we have the opportunity to collect data from U.S. listed companies, analyze, justify and test them, and then combine them with the unique characteristics of enterprises in the Chinese context and the findings of this paper, we can achieve an organic combination of the three from the perspective of globalization's macroscopic vision and cross-cultural sensitivity. We believe that we can provide a more comprehensive analysis and argumentation process for the construction of sustainable development and resilience of enterprises all over the world, and help enrich the theoretical system of global enterprise management and continuously improve the level of practice.

Comments 2: Incorporate a GMM model as an additional robustness test, which would further reinforce the validity of the conclusions.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your constructive comments, and we have taken your suggestions into account in our revised manuscript by adding a part of the systematic GMM test in the endogeneity test section of 5.3.2. The specific changes begin on page 12, line 441, and the changes have been highlighted in red font for your review.

Allow me to express my gratitude to you again, in our previous research we did not pay much attention to whether the conclusions of the research can be generalized worldwide. Through your suggestion this time, we realized that research conclusions are limited if they are specific; if general conclusions can be drawn, it should be more helpful to the research we have done, to the development of the global economy, and to the enrichment of economic management theories.