Remote Work and Psychological Distance: Organizational Belongingness as a Resource Against Work Stressors and Employee Performance Impairment and Distress

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article presents the results of a study of the impact of belonging to an organization (the employee's sense of personal connection with the organization, making them feel like an integral part of the organizational system) on workplace stress factors, employee productivity and well-being. The established interrelation of the above factors makes it possible to design flexible work options that ensure both a high level of productivity and the well-being of employees. The research is based on the analysis of empirical data and has a pronounced practical focus. The results of the study will be useful to both the academic community and business. At the same time, I would like to make several recommendations aimed at improving the quality of perception of the material.

1) The key setting of the study is the relationship between belonging to an organization and presence in the workplace (not online). However, long before the covid-19 pandemic, there were and continue to be activities in which an employee does not communicate (or does not actively communicate) with other employees of the organization, while demonstrating a pronounced affiliation to the company. The most prominent representatives are employees of the post office and courier services, freight forwarders, truck drivers, etc. In addition, the social consequences of going online actually occurred only for those who had previously worked offline. It would be advisable to consider how affiliation to the organization is formed among such categories of employees.

2) According to the text of the article, the questionnaire was based on methods modified by other authors, taking into account the specifics of the study. It is recommended to provide a list of questions or indicate which modifications (compared to the basic version) were used.

3) In Figure 3, it is recommended to increase the font size of numeric values, this will make the results easier to read.

Author Response

Please refer to the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article is a good topic reflecting the company's situation. I respect the authors for their hard work. However, I have some questions and need further explanations.

 

 - There is a difference between the article table of contents and the editorial guidelines of the journal (sustainability). If possible, please conform to the format of the journal.

- It is difficult to understand the purpose of this study. Please describe the specific purpose of your research.

 - It is difficult to understand the process of setting up a research model, hypothesis, and verifying the established hypothesis. Please conduct research by setting up a research model and hypothesis based on related theories and verifying the hypothesis. And please present the hypothesis in detail for each path.  

- How did the researchers select 205 enterprises and 1,941 works? What is the period of the survey? Please describe the sampling process in more detail.

- Please present the Respondent profile in a table.

- I think additional analysis is needed to verify the validity of each factor of the variable. For example, analysis such as factor analysis. If you perform factor analysiss, please also present the actor loadings of the variables.

- Please present the survey items in the paper.

- In this study, the research was conducted by distinguishing between in-person works and flexible works, but there is little related analysis and almost no implications. It would be good to conduct additional analysis and present implications through verification of differences or moderating effects by major factors for in-person works and flexible works. However, if this is difficult to do, it seems that conducting research without distinguishing is also a method.

 

Author Response

Please refer to the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is interesting and well constructed. The theoretical framework is quite solid and deals in an exhaustive and pertinent way with organizational belonging and work stress. Likewise, the methodology is rigorous and presents a multilevel analysis. The sample is large and diverse (1,941 workers from 205 organizations). It is also noteworthy that the findings are relevant to the impact of the sense of belonging to organizations, and therefore the interest of this article, which in the future may have a lot of impact and numerous citations.

 

Some improvements to be made:

Figure 2 is a bit complex and some figures are not easy to read.

Hypotheses 4 and 6 lack a theoretical basis. They should be incorporated.

Bold and underline are sometimes used incorrectly in the text.

Information on the validation process of the translated instruments needs to be incorporated.

The limitations of having used a convenience sample should be incorporated.

In the discussion, the practical implications of this research should be further developed.

The number of citations and references seems a bit excessive to me: 96. And although there are some current ones, there are many citations that are already a few years old.

 

There are some minor errors in the typography and in the citations. For example:

According to Walton (Walton & Cohen, 2007), à According to Walton & Cohen (2007),

((Baumeister & Leary, 1995) à (Baumeister & Leary, 1995)

Author Response

Please refer to the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I respect the hard work of the researchers who revised the paper well. However, additional revisions are required for the following comments.

 3. I agree with some of the researchers' opinions. However, I would like you to supplement the theoretical background related to the hypothesis setting a little more.

 4. It would be better to describe the research period up to the month or day.

 

Author Response

Please refer to the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf