How Empowering Leadership Drives Proactivity in the Chinese IT Industry: Mediation Through Team Job Crafting and Psychological Safety with ICT Knowledge as a Moderator

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: Abstract and Title:

While the abstract provides a comprehensive overview of the study, consider explicitly highlighting the study's contributions—the mediating and moderating effects—to make it more distinctive. I suggest to revise the title to emphasize these effects and the importance of the study

Response 1: I appreciate your insightful suggestion. In response, we have revised both the title and the abstract to emphasize the study’s contributions, specifically the mediating and moderating effects examined in our model. The updated title now emphasizes the theoretical mechanisms and the digital context in which they occur, effectively conveying the study’s focus. The updated abstract (lines 9–29, page 1) now explicitly outlines the mediating functions of team job crafting and psychological safety, as well as the moderating effect of access to knowledge via ICT. These revisions seek to enhance the clarity and distinctiveness of our study’s contributions.

Comments 2: Introduction:

The authors should better clarify why this is an important research problem, and how the study contributes to the existing literature. I think the authors must improve the discussion about the gap in the literature and to provide a better motivation to the study.

Response 2: Thank you for highlighting this critical point. We have amended the relevant text to more explicitly articulate the significance of the research problem. Please refer to the revised paragraph 2 on Page 3, Lines 102–107.

Comments 3: Introduction: A clear discussion of the research questions in this section is highly recommended.

Response 3: We appreciate this recommendation. We have restructured the section to present three research questions more distinctly. Please refer to Page 4, Paragraph 2, Lines 116–131

Comments 4: Introduction: Additionally, it is suggested to introduce more information and analysis about the Chinese geographical and cultural context, the specificity of the IT industry, and how it is different compared with population and firms from other cultural background and industries.

Response 4: Thank you for this insightful comment. We have incorporated contextual information regarding the Chinese IT industry, including its scale, work culture (e.g., “996” work schedule), and comparison with Western IT firms. Moreover, we discussed the hierarchical and high-pressure cultural milieu that influences leadership and employee behaviors in China, thereby enriching the contextual foundation of our research. Please refer to the updated Page 2, Paragraph 2, Lines 46–62.

Comments 5: I suggest to identify the hypotheses in the schematic representation of the conceptual model (figure 1).

Response 5: We appreciate the proposal. Figure 1 has been revised to incorporate the relevant hypothesis labels, elucidating the theoretical relationships depicted in the model and enhancing its readability. Please refer to the revised Figure 1 on Page 10, Line 323.

Comments 6: Sample and procedure: As a potential reader of the paper, I would expect to see a detailed table with descriptive statistics. 

Response 6: Thank you for your useful suggestion. In response, we have included a detailed Table 1 featuring the descriptive statistics. This table enhances the clarity and transparency of our sample characteristics and data structure. Please refer to Page 11, Table 1, Line 378.

Comments 7: The results section is well-organized, with clear tables and figures that align with textual descriptions. However, the table 4 is not indicated previously in the text, even it is not properly contextualized and explained.

Response 7:
Thank you for your valuable feedback. Based on your suggestion, we have renumbered the tables  to accommodate the newly added descriptive statistics table (now Table 1). The former Table 4 (now Table 5), which reports on the Sobel test for mediation effects, has been properly introduced and explained in the main text. Specifically, we incorporated a description and contextualization of the test results to enhance clarity and coherence in the Results section. Please refer to Page 16, Paragraph 1, Lines 463–468.

5. Additional clarifications

We appreciate the reviewers’ insightful comments and recommendations. Apart from the specific revisions noted above, we have meticulously reviewed the entire manuscript to enhance clarity, coherence, and consistency. All grammatical issues and language expressions have been enhanced to elevate the quality of English. We invite any further recommendations and are willing to revise the manuscript if necessary.

Point-by-point response to Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments 1: the introduction section of a paper should generally present the context of your research, it's general aim or purpose, its novelty and the paper's structure. Your introduction section, in my opinion, is mainly a theoretical discussion of the concepts used in your paper, which is redundant since the same theoretical concepts are discussed in section 2. For example, lines 46-57 from the introduction and lines 93-109 from section two discuss, pretty much the same concepts, only using different words. I would suggest changing the introduction.

Response 1: I greatly appreciate your constructive suggestion. Following your advice, I have revised the introduction section to eliminate redundancy. Specifically, I have deleted overlapping theoretical discussions and streamlined the conceptual content.

To enhance the value of the introduction and more accurately reflect the research context, I have incorporated a description of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese IT companies in the second and third paragraphs on page 2. Moreover, I have deleted the redundant definitions and more explicitly linked the discussion to the research question in the fourth paragraph of page 2 (line 22) and the first paragraph of page 3 (lines 72–74). These revisions intend to concentrate the introduction on the study's background, purpose, and contributions, rather than restating theoretical content elaborated in Section 2.

We hope that these revisions have enhanced the clarity and relevance of the introduction section.

Comments 2: Fig 1 - I would also add the hypothesis on the lines connecting the variables in the theoretical model. At the same time, please make sure that the theoretical model reflects all the relationships between your variables, as you have stated them in the hypothesis development section. For example, H1 deals with the direct relationship between empowering leadership and workplace productivity, variables which are not directly connected in your theoretical model figure.

Response 2: We appreciate the proposal. Figure 1 has been revised to incorporate the corresponding hypothesis labels, elucidating the theoretical relationships depicted in the model and enhancing its readability. Please refer to the revised Figure 1 on Page 10, Line 323.

Comments 3: it's not clear which exactly is your sample. Did you apply the questionnaire only to the 510 subordinates or to the 74 team leaders as well?

Response 3: We thank you for highlighting this ambiguity. In the revised manuscript, we have clarified the sample composition and data collection procedure in the Methodology section (pp. 10-11, lines 335-356). 

3. Additional clarifications

In addition to the revisions addressing the reviewer’s main concerns, we have also thoroughly proofread the manuscript to enhance language clarity and consistency. To enhance its readability and presentation quality, we have made minor corrections in wording and formatting throughout the manuscript.