Litigation Risk and Corporate Social Responsibility—Evidence from a Poverty Alleviation Campaign in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to review the manuscript entitled “Litigation risk and corporate social responsibility- evidence from a poverty alleviation campaign in China.”

 

Abstract

The abstract should briefly present the purpose of this study, method, data, analysis, results, implications. Also, the manuscript should use appropriate ‘terms’ (e.g., hand-collected data).

 

Introduction

The citation in introduction should be revised.

 

Introduction

The content in introduction suddenly changed on page 2. (e.g., poverty alleviation – gender inequality and female leadership). Introduction should be revised and point out problem statement.

 

 

Instead of highlighting the potential contributions of this study, the purpose of this study is not clearly written.

“The purpose of this paper is thus to provide evidence to narrow the gap by taking corporate litigation risks as an entry point.” On page 2.  

 

Literature review

On page 4, one sentence is an paragraph. Overall, please revise the manuscript.

 

Hypothesis is “Litigation risks increase the participation of corporations in TPA.”

I am not sure about the causal relationships and the models presented next section the hypothesis and the model should be more clearly explained. Moreover, all core variables and moderators should be explained.

 

Discussion

Implications should be given in terms of theoretical and practical perspectives.

 

References

This manuscript should be revised and present the references based on the instruction of the MDPI format.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for having the opportunity to read your paper. The paper presents an interesting conceptual paper on Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA and risks associated with such governance. The paper is very sincere and detailed in technically describing the context (China) and also in reporting the finding technically (regressions). I believe for most readers there is technical jargon and contextual jargon (introduction) that could be simplified significantly. 

Given that this is a rather applied side of research and following recent applied guidelines for statistics I believe modeling could avoid some of the algoritms and mathematical demonstrations (see Pesämaa et al., 2021). When it comes to your conclusions. which are quite shallow and not really ground breaking I am asking whether you need such all statistics to support your conclusions. For sure controls and robustness and the conceptual definitions of the model but this could be shortened by all means. 

For me the key construct in this paper is TPA and it is introduced in abstract and introduction but not defined properly until beginning of section 2 (literature review). To me the authors should completely reposition your introduction by following guidelines of how to write an introduction (see Huemann et al., 2022). This means you start by dropping your key construct that is TPA and governance and define these (by the way, governance is not properly defined). In the second paragraph you then tell why this is important. Here you can say something about china. In the third paragraph you tell the reader briefly what we know about this area. In the forth paragraph following Huemann et al (2022) you problematize and tell what remains undone in the previous literature and why this is relevant and then boldly tell your research question and aims. To me this section is not clear and part of the research seem too targeted to offer a contribution solely to a Chinese audience and this is an international journal.

Finally and in your theory section you mention that "internal traits" whereas the paper really is at an organizational level. I believe much of the concept could more strongly be considering governance as an organizational trait. An organizational trait means governance become stable and incorporate cultural facets and thus oversee individual differences (see Pesämaa et al., 2013). 

These are my thoughts,

 

Good luck!

 

Refernce

 

Huemann, M., & Pesämaa, O. (2022). The first impression counts:: The essentials of writing a convincing introduction. International Journal of Project Management, 40(7).

 

Pesämaa, O., Shoham, A., Wincent, J., & Ruvio, A. A. (2013). How a learning orientation affects drivers of innovativeness and performance in service delivery. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 30(2), 169-187.

 

Pesämaa, O., Zwikael, O., HairJr, J., & Huemann, M. (2021). Publishing quantitative papers with rigor and transparency. International Journal of Project Management, 39(3), 217-222.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for revising the paper following reviewers' suggestions. It has been substantially improved.

 

Author Response

Thanks again for your advice and guidance on our papet.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for improving this manuscript. I found that the second version is added more information and tables. However, the citation format and the references are not sufficient and well listed.

Author Response

Thank you for your detailed and expert advice. With reference to your suggestion, we have checked through all our citation and revised the format of them. We added references to the new parts of the paper.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper improved significantly. Although Chinese context still dominate in introduction and theory I would say it is much better. I though like TPA is now better explained and defined. Some minor things:

- Sometimes authors use three digits and sometimes two. I think two would be sufficient for both standardized beta as well as unstandardized t-values. 

- There is one correlation coefficient with no digits. Looks strange.

- There is added references marked in red but not cited in text. I think these were part of the previous comments and should also be cited in text accordingly. 

Author Response

Point 1: Sometimes authors use three digits and sometimes two. I think two would be sufficient for both standardized beta as well as unstandardized t-values.

Response 2:Thank you for your detailed and expert advice. With reference to your suggestion, we have changed all values in tables to two digits.  

 

Point 2:  There is one correlation coefficient with no digits. Looks strange.

Response 2:Thank you for your detailed and expert advice. We have checked through all values in tables and edited accordingly.  

 

 

Point 3:   There is added references marked in red but not cited in text. I think these were part of the previous comments and should also be cited in text accordingly.

Response 3:The in-text citations for added references have been highlighted in yellow, on pages2, 5 and 14 of the paper, with the serial numbers xiii, xxxiv and xxxvi.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf