Linking Sustainable Design and Social Sustainability Performance of Chemical Manufacturing Firms: Moderating Role of Islamic Work Ethics
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this study. The study is very interesting, and the topic is relevant and timely. I would like to recommend that the moderating role of Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) is more clearly explained. Please make sure you clearly explain how under different levels of IWE, the Sustaibale design may have greater or lower impact on social sustainability performance. So discuss the moderator role more clearly please (that it serves like a precondition for the effective impact of SD on SSP)
Please provide sample size information in the abstract. Tell the readers how many firms and how many respondents were included in the study.
Please check how to state the effect of the moderator. “This study confirmed that Islamic work ethics had a dominant significant impact on the social sustainability performance of chemical manufacturing firms, followed by sustainable design.” This statement does not imply a moderating role. It sounds as if IWE is related to SP and SD. It is also not clear what is meant by “followed by sustainable design”. Make sure that readers do not understand mediation if you mean moderation. Please use specific language instead of “more advanced tests”. Moderation should tell us that at high and low levels of IWE the relationship between SP and SD should change. You should tell us what is the relationship when we do not consider IWE. How does it change when IWE is low and how does it change when IWE is high. Please check the literature to see how moderation is explained in abstracts.
In H2 We are told that IWE improves SSP
Later in H3 we are told that IWE moderates the SD and SSP relationship
The moderation hypothesis is not clear. It sounds like it still argues that IWE has a direct positive relationship to SSP. What we need is an explanation about how the SD & SSP relationship differs when IWE are strong or when the IWE is weak (or low). So under these two conditions, what would happen to the SD & SSP relationship?
Please indicate who received the questionnaire in 130 companies in 3.1 section. How many responded? Were all quesionnaires useable? Were any checks conducted to see non-response bias?
Why are Managers and Executives capitalized in 3.2? Please have the manuscript go through professional proofreading to avoid such errors. Please provide information on the scales used in this section. Provide sample items for scales, number of items in each, etc.
HTMT is different from the Fornell-Larcker. You provide the Fornell Larcker but label it as HTMT in Table 2. Please correct this and re-check all your methods section for such errors.
Please report the means, ranges, and standard deviations for your latent variables.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read your manuscript id sustainability-2084081 entitled “Linking Sustainable Design and Social Sustainability Performance of Chemical Manufacturing Firms: Moderating Role of Islamic Work Ethics.” I appreciate the author's efforts and dedication to writing an interesting paper. There are some suggestions for
improving the manuscript. Please check the attached file
Good luck.
1. Introduction
The introduction is very brief, especially the connection between Islamic work ethics and sustainability needs to be strengthened. In addition, why the chemical industry? What is the significance of this industry compared to
other industries? Further, the literature cited to support the arguments is very old. Therefore, I recommend updating the arguments with recent literature.
Other than this, it is fine.
2. Literature review
The literature review is interesting and I have these suggestions
1. For instance, the first two paragraphs 2.1 Natural-Resource-Based View Theory and 2.2 Stakeholder theory are fine but how do these theories support your hypotheses? Please use these theories while developing study hypotheses.
2. The arguments leading to moderating hypothesis need to be further improved.
3. Please cite up-to-date literature as most of them are quite old.
3. Methodology
These details are required
1. Could you please provide the details of the total registered chemical firms in Malaysia?
2. How the sample size was calculated?
3. When the survey was carried out?
4. Give the source of adapted scales.
5. Isn’t a sample of 130 firms too small? Please justify.
6. What measures did you take to reduce common method (CMB) bias during the data collection? Which statistical tests were applied to check CMB?
7. Why PLS-SEM and why not CB-SEM?
4. Results
I have some issues with the results
For instance,
Note of Tables 2 and 3 show a *p-value > 0.05, it should be less than 0.05.
What is the significance level of this research? At a 95 confidence interval, the t-value should be above 1.96 but your moderating effect t-value is 1.891 at *p-value > 0.05 (which is itself an issue). So, it would not be significant. If it is not significant then it reduces the value of this research.
5. Discussion, implications, and conclusion
The results are thoroughly discussed but the role of underpinning theories is missing. I suggest the authors discuss the results with the anchoring of adapted theories.
Implications and conclusions are fine.
Discuss the study limitations.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Overall the islamic ethics is an interesting approach.
However there are some major limitations that need to be addressed.
1. Model is very simple. Include mediating effects, and descriptives. The contribution of the paper should go beyond the current research model.
2. There are no sources of scales. Please make a proper operationalization of variables section description, and list all sources.
3. Enrich the paper with the following literature that could help build up background and support . Influence of Virtual CSR Co-Creation on the Purchase Intention of Green Products under the Heterogeneity of Experience Value. Sustainability, 14(20), 13617.
How Does Inequality Affect the Residents' Subjective Well-Being: Inequality of Opportunity and Inequality of Effort. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 843854. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.843854
What matters in the e-commerce era? Modelling and mapping shop rents in Guangzhou, China. Land Use Policy, 123, 106430. doi: https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106430
Does the porter hypothesis work well in the emission trading schema pilot? Exploring moderating effects of institutional settings. Research in International Business and Finance, 62, 101732. doi: https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.ribaf.2022.101732
4. Statistical analysis needs to be more comprehensive, normality of data, goodness of fit, multicolinearity? Were all assumptions tested?
Improved paper has potential for publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been improved. However there is still not much contribution due to research model simplicity. You may engage with prior literature that performed impact of Islamic context on business outcomes, and see how the article contributes to literature by enhancing the islamic contrubtion
E-Wallet Transactional Framework for Digital Economy: A Perspective from Islamic Financial Engineering
Cryptocurrency Framework Diagnostics from Islamic Finance Perspective: A New Insight of Bitcoin System Transaction
The Ethics of Lecturers Based on Islamic Perspective in Al-Washliyah Universities
Monotonic Correlation Diagnostics of Share Price Volatility for Shariah-Compliant Islamic Bank: A New Insight of Islamic Financial Engineering
Long Term Performance of Islamic Share Price for Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in Malaysia: Evidence from Sharia-Compliant Companies Listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange (2006-2010)
2. Direct quotations from Quran are not required, perspectives on social sustainability should be operationalized in a scientific manner without unecessary illustrations . The author should be able to explain the context, ad keep focus on the methodology of scientifc research.
3. Some other comments were made in previous reviewe which were not addressed. Please include during second review.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
There are no track changes in the latest manuscript you submitted so it is difficult to identify changes.
Additionally,consider to enrich the paper with the literature that could help build up background and support proposed in the first round that includes . How Does Inequality Affect the Residents' Subjective Well-Being: Inequality of Opportunity and Inequality of Effort. Frontiers in psychology, 13, 843854. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.843854, and others
Author Response
Please see the attachment
