Employee Involvement and Commitment in Internal Communication
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to read the article “Employee Involvement and Commitment in internal communication”.
Below are my observations:
The Abstract should be reformulated so that it contains the theme and purpose of the research, a brief presentation of the methods used, the results obtained and the conclusions drawn. Its current form is too detailed.
The Introduction of the paper is too long and addresses general aspects of human resources management and management of organizations, which are not related to the subject of the paper. The section must be restructured to present the importance of the topic and the purpose of the research, to offer a current brief presentation of the research field and indicate the particular focus of the authors. The detailed information on the types of informational flows, types of internal communication can be eliminated considering that the length of the work is considerable.
Most of the works cited are from the 90s; I suggest consulting some recent open access publications to present the current context in the field (DOI: 10.3145/epi.2019.sep.21; 10.5783/RIRP-20-2020-10-179-200; 10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.12.003; 10.4995/wpom.v8i1.7390).
Regarding the results obtained, how are they compared to those in other countries? The authors refer only to old research (1993, 2008), but the situation has changed a lot in the last 30 years, and the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the field of internal communication (DOI: 10.7441/dokbat.2018.16; 10.17829/turcom.693378; 10.1177/01968599221095182; 10.16921/chasqui.v0i134.2697; 10.14198/MEDCOM.18692).
What are the practical implications of this study?
General impression:
The study is interesting and I appreciate the effort made by the authors, but the size of the paper is far too large for a single article. There are a lot of details and information resulting from the two types of analysis, qualitative and quantitative, which can make it difficult for readers to follow the conclusions. I think each of the two analyses could be presented in a separate article.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please, see the attachment.
Best regards
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper provides interesting evidence about the importance of internal communication and its impact on employees' involvement and organizational commitment by using the case from Angola. The research also incorporated the interview data and quantitative analysis. However, there are some points that still need improvement in order to enhance the overall quality and completeness of the paper. I encourage the authors to consider the comments given below and carefully revise the paper as suggested.
(1) The authors must clarify what is the key research contribution that the study provides. How this research expands the knowledge that we already know related this topic? Right now, it is not clearly stated in the paper.
(2) The first 3 paragraphs of the introduction contain the information that is too general, and they seem not to directly reflect the main variables of the research. It will be better if the authors can be more specific on the current challenges that organizations have recently face.
(3) The literature review contains a lot of old citations. They need to be updated to include recent papers no more than 5 years.
(4) The review about organizational communication still needs to be expanded. The review must cover the recent papers from high-impact journals which show evidence how organizational communication is essential for organizations to help their employees to deal with challenging situations. In particular, I strongly recommend the authors to consider these 3 papers below as the additional references to support this point.
· How Managerial Communication Reduces Perceived Job Insecurity of Flight Attendants During the COVID-19 Pandemic", Corporate Communications: an International Journal, 27(2), 368-387. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-07-2021-0080
· Unraveling the What and How of Organizational Communication to Employees During COVID-19 Pandemic: Adopting an Attributional Lens. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 56(3), 289–293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886320937026
· Does the End Justify the Means? The Role of Organizational Communication among Work-from-Home Employees during the COVID-19 Pandemic. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(8). doi:10.3390/ijerph18083933
(5) Similarly, for employee involvement, which is another key variable in the research, it is important to cover some more review of recent papers from high-impact journals which show evidence how it might be the essential practice for organizations during challenging situations. In particular, I strongly recommend the authors to consider these 2 papers below as the additional references to support this point.
· Influence of Transformational Leadership on Role Ambiguity and Work-Life Balance of Filipino University Employees During COVID-19: Does Employee Involvement Matter?, International Journal of Leadership in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2021.1882701
· Employee Engagement and Wellbeing in Times of COVID-19: A Proposal of the 5Cs Model. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(10). doi:10.3390/ijerph18105470
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please see the attachment.
Best regards
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This study recognized the importance of communication within the organization and conducted an empirical analysis based on the survey. I think there are some serious problems for the paper to be published.
1. There is a lack of specific reasons or motivation for why the analysis was conducted on Angolan workers.
2. Many studies have already been published on topics similar to those of this study. This study did not thoroughly investigate and organize previous studies. Looking at the list of references presented at the end of this study, the most recent study is the 2014 study. Researchers have not conducted any review of the latest research. It is necessary to update at least 20-25 previous studies after 2019.
3. There is no explanation for the year in which the survey was conducted. It is necessary to elaborate on the reasons for which year the survey was conducted and why a particular year was chosen.
4. At the end of the study, I think it would be better to suggest future research directions rather than superficially listing the limitations of the study.
5. A proofreading of English is required for the entire paper.
I hope that these opinions will be helpful for the constructive development of this study.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please see the attachment.
Best regards
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
I appreciate that the paper is interesting and deals with an important issue in the corporate environment. However, the paper has some aspects that can be improved. Some of the main drawback of the article are the following:
1. The introduction is too broad and does not contain a clear specification of the purpose, objectives, and elements of originality.
2. In the Introduction are mentioned numerous classifications but without the specification of their role in the study.
3. I recommend the development of a new section containing the Literature review from the Introduction. Research hypotheses should be defined based on specialized literature.
4. In the Subsection "2.1. Research problem and hypotheses" the research hypotheses are missing.
5. The Section "2. Materials and Methods" must include the description of all the methods used in the qualitative and quantitative analyzes (e.g., Template Analysis, Content analysis, Factorial Analysis, LRM).
6. The results presented in Subsection "4.1. Descriptive statistics" can be included in a table and only some representative results should be interpreted.
7. A synthesis of the information and its discussion in the context of the academic literature would be useful in subsections 4.4. and 4.5.
8. A new table including the final variables used in subsections 4.6. and 4.7 is needed.
9. In subsection 4.7. it is necessary to interpret the influences of the independent variables on the dependent variable and, also, it is necessary to present the validation tests applied for each of the estimated models.
10. The results from Table 22 are not discussed in the paper.
11. Section "7. Limitations and Future Research” should be written fluently, without the use of lists.
12. The cited bibliographic sources are mainly from the period 1985-2000. It is necessary to present some more recent bibliographic sources from the academic literature in order to reflect the current state of the research regarding the subject (Employee Involvement and Commitment in internal communication).
Good luck!
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
please see the attachment.
Best regards
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate the authors effort to improve the manuscript and I agree with the publication in Social Sciences.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your feedback which greatly contributed to the improvement of the article.
Best regards.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors did a good job in handling the comments. The paper is now adequately improved. There is no further comment to the authors.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your feedback which greatly contributed to the improvement of the article.
Best regards.
Reviewer 3 Report
Most of the points pointed out by the reviewer were reflected in the paper.
However, the authors do not follow the prescribed format of the paper. This paper was submitted without reviewing whether it complied with the journal regulations. For example, references are listed without conforming to the journal format.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your feedback which greatly contributed to the improvement of the article. I will ask the editor for further clarification on formatting issues.
Best Regards
Reviewer 4 Report
This paper is significantly improved and can be published in present form.
Good luck with your future research!
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your feedback which greatly contributed to the improvement of the article.
Best regards.
