How to Enhance Smart Work Effectiveness as a Sustainable HRM Practice in the Tourism Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Smart work enables workers to carry out their work through an online networked system, using information communication technology (ICT), without time and space constraints. This form of work has become particularly important during the Covid 19 pandemic worldwide. Therefore, in recent times, many companies have invested resources in the development of smart working systems for their employees. 

From this point of view, the topics discussed in the article are relevant and up-to-date. In my opinion, the article meets all the requirements for the authors of the text. It was constructed in accordance with the guidelines and current standards. The authors have demonstrated knowledge of the subject and of the field discussed in the article. However, it would be advisable to supplement the literature with the latest publications, because the cited positions are not very up-to-date, out of 33 indicated positions only 7 are publications from the last 5 years.

Author Response

Reviewer’s Comment 1: It would be advisable to supplement the literature with the latest publications, because the cited positions are not very up-to-date, out of 33 indicated positions only 7 are publications from the last 5 years.

Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We agree with your suggestion and have added the following studies which were published in recent years in introduction, literature review and discussion part.

• Wikhamn, W. (2019). Innovation, sustainable HRM and customer satisfaction. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 76, 102-110.
• Palm, K., Bergman, A., & Rosengren, C. (2020). Toward more proactive sustainable human resource management practices? A study on stress due to the ICT-Mediated integration of work and private life. Sustain, 12, 8303.
• Nedelcu, E. (2020). The perspective of young people on the effects of telework on the quality of life at work. Romanian Rev Soc Sci, 11(2):3-12
• Langè, V. & Gastaldi, L. (2020). Coping Italian Emergency COVID-19 through Smart Working: From Necessity to Opportunity. J Mediterranean Knowl-JMK, 5(1), 163-172
• Ko, E., Kim, A., & Kim, S. (2021). Toward the understanding of the appropriation of ICT-based Smart-work and its impact on performance in organizations. Technol Forecast Soc Chang, 171, 120994.
• Marino, L. & Capone, V. (2021). Smart working and well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review. Eur J Investing in Health Psychol Educ, 11, 1516-1536.
• Bucea-Manea-Tonis, R., Prokop, V., Ilic, D., Gurgu, E., Bucea-Manea-Tonis, R., Braicu, C., & Moanta, A. (2021). The relationship between Eco-innovation and smart working as support for sustainable management. Sustain, 13, 1437.

Thank you very much for your time and efforts for review our paper. 

Reviewer 2 Report

the work is okay.

Author Response

Reviewer’s Comment 2: The work is okay.

Response: Thank you so much for your positive comments. Also, we appreciate you time and efforts to review our paper.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

I appreciate having the opportunity to review the manuscript entitled “How to Enhance Smart Work Effectiveness as a Sustainable HR Practice in the Tourism Industry” (sustainability-1536406). 

 The current paper investigated how to increase smart work implementation by exploring employees’ subjectivity. A Korean travel company was selected as an adequate model of smart work. Q-methodology was utilized to gather employees’ subjective opinions about smart work.

 Although the authors have made considerable efforts to develop this paper, however, I believe that the current version of manuscript should be improved through significant revision and re-writing. I want to provide some suggestions for the improvement of this paper as follows.

[1] Introduction

- I think that the overall structure and writing of introduction part are not clear and well-aligned because it is not easy to catch what the research questions and strategies to deal with those are in this paper. Please clearly describe those things. As you already knew, the introduction section is one of the most important parts to not only draw attentions of readers but also provide guidelines for them to facilitate a clear understanding of the paper. 

[2] Theories and hypotheses

- This paper did not provide the part of “Theory and Hypotheses in an adequate manner. So, it is very difficult for me to be sure that the research has an enough level of theoretical value and contribution. I think that this is the critical flaw of this paper. Please provide the part in an elaborated way. 

- Although this paper dealt with interesting phenomena, it did not provide adequate theoretical background and support for the development of its hypotheses. This is the critical limitation of this paper. Please clearly explain what its hypotheses are.

 

[3] Strengths and Limitations of the Study

- Although the authors have attempted to explain the contributions and implications of the paper, I think that the overall quality of the explanations is low. Please provide more elaborated explanations to demonstrate its theoretical and practical contributions.

 

 I wish these comment may help you to improve your paper. Good luck.

 

Author Response

Reviewer’s Comment 3:

1) Introduction

- I think that the overall structure and writing of introduction part are not clear and well-aligned because it is not easy to catch what the research questions and strategies to deal with those are in this paper. Please clearly describe those things. As you already knew, the introduction section is one of the most important parts to not only draw attentions of readers but also provide guidelines for them to facilitate a clear understanding of the paper. 

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We tried to strengthen the introduction with the beginning paragraph and the study purpose as below.

Introduction

p.1

Sustainable human resource management (Sustainable HRM) is a sustainable personal system to achieve three core values of economic, social and environmental factors from ‘The 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs)’ announced by the UN General Assembly in 2015 [1,2]. Its main goal is to create employee value like enhancing employees' working conditions, employee capacity, and health care, work-life balance, well-being, and justice at the workplace [3]. From this view, smart work can be considered as one of the useful sustainable HR practices since the basic idea of smart work is to actualize ideal workplace to improve employees’ well-being and overall quality of life [4, 5].

 

1. 2

However, two conflicting viewpoints on smart work have been proposed. It seems positive that smart work brings many potential benefits not only for employees and organizations, but also for the environment and society [6, 14]. On the other hand, smart work may generate negative results [15]. For instance, smart work eventually cannot help employees separate their work from personal lives. Moreover, employees engaging in smart work tend to feel isolated due to their limited face-to-face interactions with their co-workers [16].

Based on these arguments on potential benefits and drawbacks of smart work, this study attempted to see more about how smart work affects employees’ job and personal lives by collecting their subjective opinions. To this end, this study used Q-methodology to collect employees’ detailed ideas toward smart work that they have experienced. And Hana Tour travel agency, which has been a good model of smart work in Korea, was selected as a study sample company. Therefore, this study aims (1) to describe the employees’ specific experience toward smart work in their work and personal lives and (2) to identify the typology of employees’ subjective opinions on smart work to show its effectiveness. By doing so, (3) the ultimate goal of this study is to delve into how to systemically improve the current smart work implementation not only as a sustainable human resource management (sustainable HRM), but also as a contactless work format.

Meanwhile, social exchange theory would provide a grounded theoretical framework to understand the underlying reason of smart work implementation [17]. Moreover, sustainable HRM [2] becomes a basis to discuss managerial implication for facilitating smart work practice in business.

 

2) Theories and hypotheses

- This paper did not provide the part of “Theory and Hypotheses in an adequate manner. So, it is very difficult for me to be sure that the research has an enough level of theoretical value and contribution. I think that this is the critical flaw of this paper. Please provide the part in an elaborated way. 

- Although this paper dealt with interesting phenomena, it did not provide adequate theoretical background and support for the development of its hypotheses. This is the critical limitation of this paper. Please clearly explain what its hypotheses are.

Response: I understand your comment. In fact, Q methodology is mainly related to a qualitative approach which extracts subjectivity from interviewees. Thus, no hypotheses and theory are required in Q research (June et al., 2017; Lu, Lin, and Sun, 2018).

Juan, Y., Choi, Y. J., An, S., Lee, C. K., & Lee, S. J. (2017). The constraints of Chinese tourists to visit Korea caused by THAAD using Q-methodology. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 22(12), 1261–1273.

Lu, M., Lin, A., & Sun, J. (2018). The impact of photovoltaic applications on urban landscapes based on visual Q methodology. Sustainability, 10(4), 1051. Doi:10.3390/su10041051.

 

3) Strengths and Limitations of the Study

-Although the authors have attempted to explain the contributions and implications of the paper, I think that the overall quality of the explanations is low. Please provide more elaborated explanations to demonstrate its theoretical and practical contributions.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We agree with this comment and have corrected our document accordingly as follows. (p.12-15, the red color paragraphs in discussion part)

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors, 

Please see the attached for my comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer’s Comment 4:

• Your sample is quite small, and rather confusing in its description (pg. 4-6). It looks like your primary data (in Table 1) are drawn from just 10 individuals. Your Q-analysis is based on responses from 25 different employees. But then on page 6 you say have classified the results from “25 Hana Tour employees.” This is confusing: What is the actual sample?

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. First of all, 25 samples are appropriate in Q methodology (Ha, 2014). Second, Q methodology takes two steps: First step is related to extract subjectivity from 10 individuals along with materials, such as newspaper articles, government reports, and TV news; and second step is related to Q-sorting by 25 samples. That is why two types of samples are required.

Ha, E. H. (2014). Attitudes toward video-assisted debriefing after simulation in undergraduate nursing students: An application of Q methodology. Nurse Education Today, 34(6), 978-984.

On the surface, please expand the Methods section to account for these differences and clarify your true sample. At a deeper level, an N of 10, or 25, is not very convincing. Although it is the data you currently have, you make a lot out of these few perspectives. Appropriately, you mention this as a next step, so you’ve covered yourself in that way. Still, I would suggest a comment from you about the reliability of these data.

Response: Thank you for this suggestion.

To avoid confusion, we have added the following sentence at Methodology section (p. 5-6):

Q methodology takes two steps of sampling procedures: First step requires samples (called Q-population) to extract subjectivity from them along with materials, such as newspaper articles, government reports, and TV news; and second step requires samples (called P-sample) to sort Q-sample statement.

"The 25 employees, who participated in the study, were different from the ten employees interviewed to collect the Q-population."

One of the most salient characteristics of the Q-methodology is the use of a small sample (Ha, 2014). In this study, we used the purposive sampling method, and selected 25 P-sample to review the Q-sample statements. For instance, the previous studies using Q-methodology utilized P-sample of 34 (Hunter, 2013), 30 (Brown, 1993; Hunter, 2011; McKeown & Thomas, 1988), and 20 (Hutson & Montgomery, 2006; Tan, Luh & Kung, 2014). We agree with your suggestion and have added explanation as follows (p. 5-6).

"Q is a small-sample methodology, and the size needs to be decided for the purpose and topic of the study."

Brown, S. R. (1993). A primer on Q methodology. Operant Subjectivity, 16(3/4), 91-138.

Hunter, W. C. (2011). Rukai indigenous tourism: Representations, cultural identity and Q method. Tourism Management, 32(2), 335-348.

Hunter, W. C. (2013). Understanding resident subjectivities toward tourism using Q method: Orchid Island, Taiwan. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 21(2), 331-354.

Hutson, G., & Montgomery, D. (2006). How do outdoor leaders feel connected to nature places? A Q-Method inquiry. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 10(2), 29-39.

McKeown, B. F., & Thomas, D. B. (1988). Q methodology: Quantitative applications in the social sciences series. 66. London: Sage.

Tan, S. K., Luh, D. B., & Kung, S. F. (2014). A taxonomy of creative tourists in creative tourism. Tourism Management, 42, 248-259.

 

• Your literature is relatively out-of-date; the average publication date of articles on Smart Work is 2012. The issue I’m concerned with, is the relevance of your conclusions and implications for current theory and practice. Maybe your argument is still fresh, i.e. the disagreements in the field are still unresolved such that the current paper can make a genuine difference. However as a reader I’m left with more questions than conviction on the value of your contribution. Please: Add some citations that will affirm the current relevance of the Smart Work benefits and drawbacks that you have found. My hope is this is not an onerous task, and by doing it you will gain more visibility through the article.

Response: We agree with your suggestion. We added some more recent citations and revised accordingly to strengthen the value of our theoretical and practical contribution as follows.

 

Added citations

• Wikhamn, W. (2019). Innovation, sustainable HRM and customer satisfaction. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 76, 102-110.
• Palm, K., Bergman, A., & Rosengren, C. (2020). Toward more proactive sustainable human resource management practices? A study on stress due to the ICT-Mediated integration of work and private life. Sustain, 12, 8303.
• Nedelcu, E. (2020). The perspective of young people on the effects of telework on the quality of life at work. Romanian Rev Soc Sci, 11(2):3-12
• Langè, V. & Gastaldi, L. (2020). Coping Italian Emergency COVID-19 through Smart Working: From Necessity to Opportunity. J Mediterranean Knowl-JMK, 5(1), 163-172
• Ko, E., Kim, A., & Kim, S. (2021). Toward the understanding of the appropriation of ICT-based Smart-work and its impact on performance in organizations. Technol Forecast Soc Chang, 171, 120994.
• Marino, L. & Capone, V. (2021). Smart working and well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review. Eur J Investing in Health Psychol Educ, 11, 1516-1536.
• Bucea-Manea-Tonis, R., Prokop, V., Ilic, D., Gurgu, E., Bucea-Manea-Tonis, R., Braicu, C., & Moanta, A. (2021). The relationship between Eco-innovation and smart working as support for sustainable management. Sustain, 13, 1437.

Discussion p.15

In the meantime, sustainable HRM practice is known as personnel activities to achieve the social, economic, and environmental goals. In HRM practice, social sustainability is for companies to perform their social responsibilities by putting value on social issues such as poverty, income inequality, health care, and education not only in society but also for the employees. Economic sustainability is a factor that must be met for financial success and it should be beneficial for both of outside and inside stakeholders like employees. Environmental sustainability means that business must consider its impact on natural resources, the environment, and global warming as well [39]. This study shows that the 5 typologies of smart work effectiveness in this study, which are self-development and energy saving (type 1), quality of life (type 2), job satisfaction (type 3), work engagement (type 4), and work-life balance (type 5), are linked to sustainable HRM practice. More specifically, self-development (type 1), quality of life (type 2), and work-life balance (type 5) are related to social dimension. Energy saving (type 1) is connected to the environmental factor. At last, job satisfaction  (type 3) and work engagement (type 4) are in relation to the economic area as it is known that increasing of employee’s job satisfaction and work engagement significantly affect company performance [25].

 

• I’m intrigued by your attempt to link Smart Work with Environmental Sustainability. Based on my reading, I find very little connection there, except perhaps the reduction of CO2 due to less commute time, which might be countered by the increased use of individual energy use at home. Maybe there is a link, but it was not well developed when these data were gathered, nor is it well developed in the paper. Although that’s the “hook” which leads you to send this to Sustainability as a longstanding Reviewer for the Journal I’m not convinced about the claim. Maybe there is a way to strengthen this link in your writing.

Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We added citation to theoretically connect between smart work and environmental sustainability and revised our document as follows.

Discussion p.15

In the meantime, sustainable HRM practice is known as personnel activities to achieve the social, economic, and environmental goals. In HRM practice, social sustainability is for companies to perform their social responsibilities by putting value on social issues such as poverty, income inequality, health care, and education not only in society but also for the employees. Economic sustainability is a factor that must be met for financial success and it should be beneficial for both of outside and inside stakeholders like employees. Environmental sustainability means that business must consider its impact on natural resources, the environment, and global warming as well [39]. This study shows that the 5 typologies of smart work effectiveness in this study, which are self-development and energy saving (type 1), quality of life (type 2), job satisfaction (type 3), work engagement (type 4), and work-life balance (type 5), are linked to sustainable HRM practice. More specifically, self-development (type 1), quality of life (type 2), and work-life balance (type 5) are related to social dimension. Energy saving (type 1) is connected to the environmental factor. At last, job satisfaction  (type 3) and work engagement (type 4) are in relation to the economic area as it is known that increasing of employee’s job satisfaction and work engagement significantly affect company performance [25].

Thank you so much for your time and efforts to review our paper. 

Reviewer 5 Report

Literature Review:

The title includes the concept of Sustainable HR practice, but it is not clearly defined in the paper.

Also, the subject of the paper is on the area of ​​tourism. It would be interesting to specify the results of other studies conducted in this field on the 2 key concepts of the paper: smart work and sustainable HR practice.

In the introduction, the authors mentioned as an objective the fact that they would like to see the typology of the participants in the smart work process. What kind of typologies are treated in the literature? What are these specific typologies? Are the 5 types mentioned in the paper found in those studies?

Methodology

At section 3.3, the authors mentioned that "A follow-up interview was conducted with these respondents to explore their reasons for choosing the two most agreeable and two most disagreeable statements", but at section 4.1, the authors actually specify that the interviews were conducted with only 10 of them, not all 25. Are these 10 interviews different from the 10 interviews conducted on January 8-12 (mentioned in 3.1)? In total, how many rounds of interviews did the authors conduct?

Results

Figure 1 shows for the first time the 5 types mentioned. I expected to find mentions related to them in the Methodology section, where you specified for the first time their existence (table 5).

To this statement I would put a bibliographic source "A higher factor weight corresponds to a better representation of the characteristics of a certain type".

At section 4.1, the sentence “Third, follow-up interviews were conducted with two participants from each type who obtained the highest factor” is not completed - table 2 follows and only then the continuation of the sentence.

A list of items describing each typology would have been useful in sections 3 or at least in section 4.2. For example, in 4.2.1, the authors mentioned that “Type I was named‘self-development and energy saving group’ based on item 18, which obtained the highest standard score (1.91)”, but what are the other specific items?

At section 4.2.1., the authors mentioned that “The first follow-up interview was conducted with respondent 12” but also in 4.2.3 formulate the same “The first follow-up interview was conducted with respondent 25”, the answers being different. What, after all, is the first interview? What about the second one?

Discussion:

In section 5.1, the authors refer to other studies without mentioning at least a few examples (Example: "From this methodological attempt, this study contributes to show the more detailed smart work perspectives from employees' subjective opinions than the previous studies, which mainly has relied on quantitative methods.". ; “According to the answer of respondent 7 in Type II, unlike those in previous studies, the respondents did not pay much attention to the increasing difficulty of controlling the employees' performance and work integrity, the degradation of their team spirit and collaboration, and the unfair staff appraisal.”)

Are the 5 types identified by the authors specified in other papers as well? How are they presented in relation to the concepts of "smart work" and "Sustainable HR Practice"?

Avoid using personal pronouns or adjectives in the paper (we, our). Present the information in a depersonalized manner

References:

Reference 1 does not have the same format as the rest of the sources.

 

Author Response

Reviewer’s Comment 5:

• Literature Review:

The title includes the concept of Sustainable HR practice, but it is not clearly defined in the paper. Also, the subject of the paper is on the area of ​​tourism. It would be interesting to specify the results of other studies conducted in this field on the 2 key concepts of the paper: smart work and sustainable HR practice. In the introduction, the authors mentioned as an objective the fact that they would like to see the typology of the participants in the smart work process. What kind of typologies are treated in the literature? What are these specific typologies? Are the 5 types mentioned in the paper found in those studies?

Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We agree with your suggestion and have created Sustainable HRM practice part in literature review to explain what Sustainable HR practices. Also, we tried to revised our introduction, literature review and discussion by connecting smart work with sustainable HRM practice as follow.

Introduction p.1

Sustainable human resource management (Sustainable HRM) is a sustainable personal system to achieve three core values of economic, social and environmental factors from ‘The 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs)’ announced by the UN General Assembly in 2015 [1,2]. Its main goal is to create employee value like enhancing employees' working conditions, employee capacity, and health care, work-life balance, well-being, and justice at the workplace [3]. From this view, smart work can be considered as one of the useful sustainable HR practices since the basic idea of smart work is to actualize ideal workplace to improve employees’ well-being and overall quality of life [4, 5].

Literature review p. 2~3

2.1. Sustainable HRM and Social Exchange Theory

As sustainability issues such as environmental protection, people’s well-being, and social accountability have become more critical across the globe, people have been getting more interested in the sustainability of business environment [18]. Upon this background, sustainable human resource management (sustainable HRM) was created as a novel personnel management concept [3]. Kramar (2014) defined sustainable HRM as a new approach to manage people by practicing a long-term human resource management strategy to achieve a company’s financial, environmental, and social goals. It targets to create employee value such as improvement of employees' working conditions, promoting long-term employment capacity, and employee health care, well-being, and justice within the workplace [3,18]. From this view, social exchange theory supports the importance of sustainable HRM.

 

Discussion P.15

In the meantime, sustainable HRM practice is known as personnel activities to achieve the social, economic, and environmental goals. In HRM practice, social sustainability is for companies to perform their social responsibilities by putting value on social issues such as poverty, income inequality, health care, and education not only in society but also for the employees. Economic sustainability is a factor that must be met for financial success and it should be beneficial for both of outside and inside stakeholders like employees. Environmental sustainability means that business must consider its impact on natural resources, the environment, and global warming as well [39]. This study shows that the 5 typologies of smart work effectiveness in this study, which are self-development and energy saving (type 1), quality of life (type 2), job satisfaction (type 3), work engagement (type 4), and work-life balance (type 5), are linked to sustainable HRM practice. More specifically, self-development (type 1), quality of life (type 2), and work-life balance (type 5) are related to social dimension. Energy saving (type 1) is connected to the environmental factor. At last, job satisfaction  (type 3) and work engagement (type 4) are in relation to the economic area as it is known that increasing of employee’s job satisfaction and work engagement significantly affect company performance [25].

 

• Methodology

At section 3.3, the authors mentioned that "A follow-up interview was conducted with these respondents to explore their reasons for choosing the two most agreeable and two most disagreeable statements", but at section 4.1, the authors actually specify that the interviews were conducted with only 10 of them, not all 25. Are these 10 interviews different from the 10 interviews conducted on January 8-12 (mentioned in 3.1)? In total, how many rounds of interviews did the authors conduct?

Response: Thank you for this comment. We conducted two rounds of interviews. First, we interviewed 10 Hana Tour employees who engaged in smart work for collecting Q-populations. Second, 25 samples (P-sample) were interviewed for Q-sorting. Thus, those 10 interviewees (Q-population) were different from the 25 P-samples.

• Results

Figure 1 shows for the first time the 5 types mentioned. I expected to find mentions related to them in the Methodology section, where you specified for the first time their existence (table 5).

To this statement I would put a bibliographic source "A higher factor weight corresponds to a better representation of the characteristics of a certain type".

Response: Thank you for your suggestions. As you suggested, we have added a bibliographic source.

A higher factor weight corresponds to a better representation of the characteristics of a certain type (Kim, 2008).

Kim, H. K. (2008). Agreement between the Q-block and Q-tool. Journal of Korean Society for the Scientific Study of Subjectivity, 16, 5-16.

At section 4.1, the sentence “Third, follow-up interviews were conducted with two participants from each type who obtained the highest factor” is not completed - table 2 follows and only then the continuation of the sentence.

Response: Thank you for your suggestions. As you suggested, we have moved Figure 1 on page 12 after the Results section. We have also linked incomplete sentence as follows (p. 7):

Third, follow-up interviews were conducted with two participants from each type who obtained the highest factor weights to explain the unique characteristics of each type. These interviewees included respondents 12 and 15 from Type I, respondents 7 and 14 from Type II, respondents 25 and 1 from Type III, respondents 22 and 2 from Type IV, and respondents 13 and 24 from Type V.

 

A list of items describing each typology would have been useful in sections 3 or at least in section 4.2. For example, in 4.2.1, the authors mentioned that “Type I was named ‘self-development and energy saving group’ based on item 18, which obtained the highest standard score (1.91)”, but what are the other specific items?

Response: First, as you suggested we have added each Table to each typology (see 4.2. Types of Smart Work Perceptions section). Second, Q studies usually focus on the most representative items when naming each type. While the other specific items were used to analyze and explain the characteristics of each type. For example, the explanation of type 1 in 4.2.1 "They perceived that smart work could help them achieve self-development (item 15), reduce their commuting time (item 21), and avoid rush hour (item 23)".

At section 4.2.1., the authors mentioned that “The first follow-up interview was conducted with respondent 12” but also in 4.2.3 formulate the same “The first follow-up interview was conducted with respondent 25”, the answers being different. What, after all, is the first interview? What about the second one?

Response: Thank you for this comment. 4.2.1 and 4.2.3 explain types 1 and 3, respectively. As shown in Table 2, 25 P-samples were divided into 5 different types. The respondent 12 is the most representative of type 1, while the respondent 25 is the most representative of type 3. We conducted two rounds of interviews. First, we interviewed 10 Hana Tour employees who engaged in smart work for collecting Q-populations. Second, 25 samples were interviewed for Q-sorting. In second-round interview, we conducted a follow-up interview after Q-sorting. A follow-up interview was conducted with 25 respondents to explore their reasons for choosing the two most agreeable and two most disagreeable statements.

 

• Discussion:

In section 5.1, the authors refer to other studies without mentioning at least a few examples (Example: "From this methodological attempt, this study contributes to show the more detailed smart work perspectives from employees' subjective opinions than the previous studies, which mainly has relied on quantitative methods.". ; “According to the answer of respondent 7 in Type II, unlike those in previous studies, the respondents did not pay much attention to the increasing difficulty of controlling the employees' performance and work integrity, the degradation of their team spirit and collaboration, and the unfair staff appraisal.”)

Are the 5 types identified by the authors specified in other papers as well? How are they presented in relation to the concepts of "smart work" and "Sustainable HR Practice"?

Avoid using personal pronouns or adjectives in the paper (we, our). Present the information in a depersonalized manner

Response: Thank you very much for this comment. Based on your opinion, we tried to revise the section 5.1 as bellows. Also, we added and presented the theoretical support of connecting the concepts of smart work and Sustainable HRM Practice in our finding in p.1 and p.15.

5.1. Theoretical contribution p.13-14

According to the arguments in previous studies [e.g., 6], opinions from various sources must be gathered to further understand the potential benefits and drawbacks of smart work. In order to meet the previous suggestions to understand smart work better, this study tried to employ Q-methodology to see more about employees’ perception to smart work program. The reason to apply Q-methodology into this study is because it elicits diverse and comprehensive responses to subjective domains by using broad sources of data. Therefore, Q-method helps the researcher(s) to understand a certain topic more in detail [36,37]. So, unlike studies which are solely relying on interview or survey data, this study used the ideas, opinions, and feelings of employees that were obtained from diverse data sources such as news articles, online communications, and in-depth interviews. A set of 38 Q-sample statements extracted in this study broadly reflects the uniqueness and subjectivity of employees who are working in different job positions, facing different family situations, and engaging in different types of smart work programs.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, applying Q-method to smart work paradigm might be the first try in this study. From this methodological attempt, this study theoretically contributes to provide the more detailed and subjective information about smart work effectiveness in literatures.

Social exchange theory is a useful theoretical framework to interpret how employees perceive, and appreciate the input of their employer to improve the quality of work environment. The efforts made by company to create the employee-perspective policies can lead to employees’ positive attitudes toward the organization such as work engagement, and to encourage them to reciprocate the benefits they receive to the organization [19,20]. Meanwhile, several studies mentioned that smart work system created work-life conflicts [34], reduced job satisfaction [33], and decreased work engagement [25]. Meanwhile, the result of this study shows clear positive outcomes from smart work implementation such as enhancing job satisfaction, work engagement, self-development, work-life balance and quality of life. Therefore, this study provided theoretical evidence of social exchange theory that employer’s efforts to support employees such as smart work program would lead employees’ positive attitudes to their organization. Also, the subjective employee’s opinions toward smart work program obtained in this study let us know how we can get these kinds of positive performances from smart work system.

 

Introduction p.1

Sustainable human resource management (Sustainable HRM) is a sustainable personal system to achieve three core values of economic, social and environmental factors from ‘The 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs)’ announced by the UN General Assembly in 2015 [1,2]. Its main goal is to create employee value like enhancing employees' working conditions, employee capacity, and health care, work-life balance, well-being, and justice at the workplace [3]. From this view, smart work can be considered as one of the useful sustainable HR practices since the basic idea of smart work is to actualize ideal workplace to improve employees’ well-being and overall quality of life [4, 5].

 

Discussion p.15

In the meantime, sustainable HRM practice is known as personnel activities to achieve the social, economic, and environmental goals. In HRM practice, social sustainability is for companies to perform their social responsibilities by putting value on social issues such as poverty, income inequality, health care, and education not only in society but also for the employees. Economic sustainability is a factor that must be met for financial success and it should be beneficial for both of outside and inside stakeholders like employees. Environmental sustainability means that business must consider its impact on natural resources, the environment, and global warming as well [39]. This study shows that the 5 typologies of smart work effectiveness in this study, which are self-development and energy saving (type 1), quality of life (type 2), job satisfaction (type 3), work engagement (type 4), and work-life balance (type 5), are linked to sustainable HRM practice. More specifically, self-development (type 1), quality of life (type 2), and work-life balance (type 5) are related to social dimension. Energy saving (type 1) is connected to the environmental factor. At last, job satisfaction  (type 3) and work engagement (type 4) are in relation to the economic area as it is known that increasing of employee’s job satisfaction and work engagement significantly affect company performance [25].

 

Thank you so much for your time and efforts to review out research.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

 

 Thank you for your efforts to revise your paper. I think that the revision is enough to be published. Congratulations!