Unshrouding the Sphere from the Clouds: Towards a Comprehensive Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Employability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I consider the paper to be an interesting, and probably not very frequent nowadays, intellectual discussion about the concept of SE. So, I wish to congratulate the authors for the intelectual effort.

I just want to express some suggestions to the authors:

• In my opinion, the relevance of the topic should be more stressed in the introductory section.
• After reading carefully the paper, I'm not completely sure about the impact of the individual SE over the society or its employers, and probably it depends on the labour regulations. I'm trying to express it through an example. If I am not able to keep my employability, then it will cease to be sustained in my case. Probably my employer could be damaged by it if labour market conditions are rigid, but if they are not, someone more employable will probably get the position. And obviously the same happens with the entire society. That leads me to suggest you to, al least, stress the possibly relative character of SE, as it has to be compared with the people who aim at similar kinds of positions. This could be especially clear in some narrow professional labour markets.
• Is it possible that my SE for a given job generates a rigidity that, at the same time, reduces my SE for the labour market as a whole, or even for my professional labour market, as I get hyperspecialized? So, it can be interesting (and relevant) how to measure the skill gap, which is again something relative, as any gap needs a reference point in order to be measured.

Finally, please don't forget to remove the final pages, which are generic instructions of the publication. Also, maybe some minor format mistakes should be boarded.

Author Response

1) I consider the paper to be an interesting, and probably not very frequent nowadays, intellectual discussion about the concept of SE. So, I wish to congratulate the authors for the intellectual effort. I just want to express some suggestions to the authors.

We are very grateful for Reviewer 1’s nice compliments on the paper.

2) In my opinion, the relevance of the topic should be more stressed in the introductory section.

We have emphasized the relevance more strongly by making some additions to- and putting some emphasis on elements of the first paragraph of the introductions that explicate the relevance further (lines 37-52).               

3) After reading carefully the paper, I'm not completely sure about the impact of the individual SE over the society or its employers, and probably it depends on the labor regulations. I'm trying to express it through an example. If I am not able to keep my employability, then it will cease to be sustained in my case. Probably my employer could be damaged by it if labor market conditions are rigid, but if they are not, someone more employable will probably get the position. And obviously the same happens with the entire society. That leads me to suggest you to, at least, stress the possibly relative character of SE, as it has to be compared with the people who aim at similar kinds of positions. This could be especially clear in some narrow professional labor markets.

We agree with Reviewer 1’s observation that employability is relative and requires a labor market perspective. To address this issue, our conceptualization includes the notion of perceived employability, which arguably encompasses the notion of employability being determined by labor market conditions. That is, as individuals self-assess their employability, they typically have some indication of their own value on the labor market which is inherently compared to relevant others. This then also feeds into (and that is a consequence of typical perceived employability measures) the idea that employability fluctuates with labor market supply and demand. We have included an elaboration of this point in the paper where we discuss the value of perceived employability as indicator for SE (line 530-533). We have also included a paragraph in the discussion that touches on this point more extensively (lines 818-830).

4) Is it possible that my SE for a given job generates a rigidity that, at the same time, reduces my SE for the labour market as a whole, or even for my professional labour market, as I get hyperspecialized? So, it can be interesting (and relevant) how to measure the skill gap, which is again something relative, as any gap needs a reference point in order to be measured.

We concur with Reviewer 1’s insight on hyperspecialization as a likely scenario that restricts SE, and have included this suggestion in our discussion section and in reviewing existing approaches (line 252-254). We have also included a paragraph in the discussion that touches on this point more extensively. We have also included a paragraph in the discussion that touches on this point more extensively (lines 818-830).

5) Finally, please don't forget to remove the final pages, which are generic instructions of the publication. Also, maybe some minor format mistakes should be boarded.

We appreciate Reviewer 1’s attentiveness to the important details regarding formatting and we have removed the final pages and corrected small formatting mistakes throughout the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors summarized the role of sustainable employability and proposed several propositions.

However, the literature review needs significant work. There is a consistent lack of in-depth discussion, which is affecting the strength of the framework.

The conclusions are well-written and elaborated with minor corrections required.

Author Response

1) The authors summarized the role of sustainable employability and proposed several propositions. However, the literature review needs significant work. There is a consistent lack of in-depth discussion, which is affecting the strength of the framework.

We are grateful to Reviewer 2 for requesting more in-depth discussion. As the manuscript is already rather long, we have followed Reviewer 2’s request by adding some elaborations while not being to extensive. Specifically we have added more depth in the following locations (as also indicated with comments in the manuscript): Lines 156-169; lines 185-186; lines 247-248; lines 252-254; lines 299-306; lines 310-311; lines 844-847.

2) The conclusions are well-written and elaborated with minor corrections required

We appreciate Reviewer 2’s compliments for the conclusions and made minor corrections in the conclusions. Specifically, we have made the following minor changes (as also indicated with comments in the manuscript): line 752; lines 759-761; lines 812-814.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, I admire your thoroughness in relevant previous studies research and ability to conceptualize upon.

Author Response

The authors are very grateful to Reviewer 3 for their compliments and appreciation of the paper. As Reviewer 3 did not make any editing requests we hereby thank this Reviewer for their effort and time reading the paper as well. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

This is an interesting and methodologically well put together paper which can make a useful contribution to the journal. However, there are some notes that the authors might wish to consider in their revision.

Notes:

- The theoretical side should be further developed in relation to the necessary background.

- The results need to be discussed in a more professional way, and expanded further.

- Mention the theoretical implications of the study. Best Regards,

Author Response

1) The theoretical side should be further developed in relation to the necessary background.

We appreciate Reviewer 4’s comment on making the theoretical side of our paper clearer. Given the length of the paper we have not expanded more on this, but instead have included more explicit references to theory in the discussion section of the paper where we discuss the implications. The implications for research heading is also replaced by ‘implications for research and theory’, because the implications actually span several connections to theory as well. We draw several connections to other theoretical concepts/frameworks here, but we think it would broaden the scope of the paper to extensively if we were to discuss these theories in more detail. This might obfuscate the main points of the paper in our opinion. Another important consideration here is that sustainable employability is a rather novel topic, so an extensive theoretical debate is not fully possible. We rather see our paper (as a whole) as one of the first profoundly theoretical papers on this topic. However, if Reviewer 4 and the Editor think it is essential to add specific theoretical considerations, we are very open to explore ways of including these in our paper in another revision round. Specific edits are made in the following places (as also indicated with comments in the document): lines 768-771; lines 818-830.

2) The results need to be discussed in a more professional way, and expanded further.

We thank Reviewer 4 for pointing us towards writing up the results in a more professional way. We understood this comment as requesting a perhaps more nuanced tone when discussing existing conceptualizations. We have made some changes to create a more nuanced tone. Specifically we have adjusted the following (also labeled with comments in the manuscript): lines 55-57; lines 156-169; line 181; lines 192-193; line 197; lines 200-201; line 220; line 239; lines 242-243; line 249; lines 252-254; lines 273-275; lines 282-283; lines 307-312. 

3) Mention the theoretical implications of the study.

In alignment with Reviewer 4 comment 1, we have explicated the implications as more clearly inherently theoretical in the discussion section. We hope this addresses this comment from Reviewer 4.