Building a Better World: The Contribution of Cooperatives and SSE Organizations to Decent Work and Sustainable Development
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper aims to stress the essential role of cooperatives for their contribution to the objectives of inclusive and sustainable development. The topic of the paper is very important and interesting. My suggestions are as follows:
1. The analysis of the paper is not clearly discussed. I find the analysis part of the paper fuzzy and unclear. The authors mentioned that "we picked up various illustrative examples in relation with the five areas of the ILO MNE Declaration in order to provide concrete examples of responsible business practices and the principles of the SSE with a focus on decent work as common thread." It sounds like the authors take a qualitative approach. However, the details of the analysis are not clear to the readers. I suggest the authors further articulate the details of the analysis.
2. The English language and style of the paper need improvement. The authors used lots of abbreviations in the paper. For example, the authors used SSE at the beginning of the paper. I suggest the authors provide the full name of the concept before using any abbreviations. This will help avoid confusion.
3. The authors should provide a figure to depict the conceptual framework. This will help the readers have a better understanding of the paper. I suggest the authors do so.
Overall, this paper studies an important question. I hope the authors find the suggestions helpful.
Author Response
We would like to thanks our three referees for all comments. We have carefully re-read our text, which has led us to clean up it by deleting some repetitions, rearranging some paragraphs and clarifying our question. We hope that the corrections will satisfy the reviewers and we thank them again for their careful review.
Thanks for the reviewer 1 for its remarks
This paper aims to stress the essential role of cooperatives for their contribution to the objectives of inclusive and sustainable development. The topic of the paper is very important and interesting. My suggestions are as follows:
- The analysis of the paper is not clearly discussed. I find the analysis part of the paper fuzzy and unclear. The authors mentioned that "we picked up various illustrative examples in relation with the five areas of the ILO MNE Declaration in order to provide concrete examples of responsible business practices and the principles of the SSE with a focus on decent work as common thread." It sounds like the authors take a qualitative approach. However, the details of the analysis are not clear to the readers. I suggest the authors further articulate the details of the analysis.
We have corrected our article in two directions: Firstly, we have clarified our materials and methods, we have also tried to better discuss our results.
- The English language and style of the paper need improvement. The authors used lots of abbreviations in the paper. For example, the authors used SSE at the beginning of the paper. I suggest the authors provide the full name of the concept before using any abbreviations. This will help avoid confusion.
The whole text has been proofread. We have explained and reduced abbreviations.
- The authors should provide a figure to depict the conceptual framework. This will help the readers have a better understanding of the paper. I suggest the authors do so.
A table has been inserted at the end of the Theoretical framework section and a small paragraph to better explain the aim of the paper.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for the opportunity to review this very interesting work. Here are some tips that I think can increase its value:
1. The methodology should be better defined and described in the body of the article and signaled in the abstract. Conceptual paper? Content analysis? Thematic analysis?
2. For the transparency of the research, it is necessary to indicate the ILO reports taken into account in the research - they can be presented in the form of a table in the annex.
3. Conclusions should be expanded with:
a) theoretical implications
b) practical implications
c) limitations
d) further research
Author Response
We would like to thank our three referees for all comments. We have carefully re-read our text, which has led us to clean up it by deleting some repetitions, rearranging some paragraphs and clarifying our question. We hope that the corrections will satisfy the reviewers and we thank them again for their careful review.
Thanks for the proposals of reviewer 2
Thank you for the opportunity to review this very interesting work. Here are some tips that I think can increase its value:
- The methodology should be better defined and described in the body of the article and signaled in the abstract. Conceptual paper? Content analysis? Thematic analysis?
The Materials and method section has been revised. We have introduced qualitative and thematic analysis in the abstract and in the methodology.
- For the transparency of the research, it is necessary to indicate the ILO reports taken into account in the research - they can be presented in the form of a table in the annex.
Indications have been given.
- Conclusions should be expanded with:
- a) theoretical implications
- b) practical implications
- c) limitations
- d) further research
We have done corrections in that sense in the conclusion.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper focuses on the essential role of cooperatives to the objectives of SDGs.
My only correction suggestion is not to use anonyms right in the abstract. It does not allow anyone who is not from the area to understand what it is about.
The title could also be improved as by instance “Building a Better World: The Impact of Cooperatives and SSE Organizations on Sustainable Development.”
The theoretical framework and literature review addresses various interesting elements and is very complete. Maybe too much inappropriate self-citations by authors.
The authors reported and anlyzed data from a sample of on various reports produced by ILO in the last 10 years in different countries around the world and focused on cooperatives.
The results are very interesting as well and show that Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), consisting of value and principle driven/based units, is particularly relevant to improve responsibility in business and society.
The theoretical contributions the paper suggests are interesting but maybe some managerial applications or several limitations could also be highlighted.
I had a great interest and pleasure in reading this first version of the paper.
I give this paper a favorable opinion.
Author Response
We would like to thank our three referees for all comments. We have carefully re-read our text, which has led us to clean up it by deleting some repetitions, rearranging some paragraphs and clarifying our question. We hope that the corrections will satisfy the reviewers and we thank them again for their careful review.
Thanks for the proposals and remarks of reviewer 3
My only correction suggestion is not to use anonyms right in the abstract. It does not allow anyone who is not from the area to understand what it is about.
The whole text has been proofread.
The title could also be improved as by instance “Building a Better World: The Impact of Cooperatives and SSE Organizations on Sustainable Development.”
We changed the original title for another one inspired by this proposal.
The theoretical framework and literature review addresses various interesting elements and is very complete. Maybe too much inappropriate self-citations by authors.
We suppressed several self-citations.
The theoretical contributions the paper suggests are interesting but maybe some managerial applications or several limitations could also be highlighted.
We have introduced managerial or practical applications, limitations and perspectives.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I suggest accepting the paper.
