The Role of Work Integration Social Enterprises in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case Study of Lithuania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is an interesting one, assessing the role of Work Integration Social Enterprises in assisting with SDGs in the context of Lithuania. In each aspect there is a shortage of research in the areas and thus this is a novel contribution.

The paper explores the period during and immediately after the 2020 pandemic, and this again is interesting in the context of the work.

The qualitative interviews were useful, adequately reported and provided useful insights into the challenges facing the organizations during this time.

The link to the SDGs is a little tenuous, but I felt the focus on WISE organizations brought the paper into the realm of the journal.

Overall, well written although a close proof read is warranted as there were some typos (e.g. These purpose of these 11 goals)

Author Response

The paper is an interesting one, assessing the role of Work Integration Social Enterprises in assisting with SDGs in the context of Lithuania. In each aspect there is a shortage of research in the areas and thus this is a novel contribution.

Response 1: Thank you the reviewer for the comment.

The paper explores the period during and immediately after the 2020 pandemic, and this again is interesting in the context of the work.

Response 2: Thank you the reviewer for the comment.

The qualitative interviews were useful, adequately reported and provided useful insights into the challenges facing the organizations during this time.

Response 3: Thank you the reviewer for the comment.

The link to the SDGs is a little tenuous, but I felt the focus on WISE organizations brought the paper into the realm of the journal. 

Response 4: Thank you the reviewer for the comment. However, we think that SDGs analysis in the WISE organizations' context is adequate and comprehensive.

Overall, well written although a close proof read is warranted as there were some typos (e.g. These purpose of these 11 goals)

Response 5:

Thank you the reviewer for the comment.

We already did proofreading. We bought MDPI English editing services before we submitted the paper. Please find the proof attached. Also, we expect that the final editing will be provided by journal editors. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your paper entitled “The Role of Work Integration Social Enterprises in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals during COVID-19 3

Pandemic: A Case Study of Lithuania”.

In my opinion, the topic is on time and the paper can contribute to the current academic debate on SDGs.

The manuscript, which is well structured and carefully written, focuses on a relevant subject and provides a good contribution to the existing literature on SDGs. In particular, the overall quality of the paper is good, since the author(s) used the proper technical language of the field. Overall, the study has a good theoretical basis.

However, I invite the editorial team and the author(s) to take into consideration these points to improve their work even further.

###Major points:

***Introduction and Conclusion

First of all, I have found the “1. Introduction” section of the paper quite short and a bit distracting sometimes. I suggest the author(s) to consider that this section could benefit from an answer to the following question: “What is the real-world problem that the study is focusing on? And why is it relevant for academic research?”. Additionally, I strongly suggest to author(s) to make the writing more fluid, introducing the reader in its comprehension and providing a precious instrument to scholars and practitioners. In the current state, it is too dispersive, but I trust that you can rewrite

The conclusions are too short in the current version. My considerations for the “Introduction” section can be extended to this section.

###Minor points:

A minor recommendation is to consider tying the various sections of the paper better. In the current version, it is possible to notice a slight separation among them. Although the structure of the paper is clear, the logical steps that lead from a section to another section are not clear too. The author(s) should try to better connect the various sections of the manuscript.

With regards to the keywords, I suggest you structure them according to a sequence from general to specific or vice versa, not randomly. Additionally, I suggest including the following keywords to improve the searchability of the paper: SDGs, case study, Lithuania

 

Afterwards, the references are not reported by following the Author’s guidelines. Please, rewrite them saving typesetter’s time.

 

Further, the current version of the paper contains a lot of grammatical errors and typo. Accordingly, a carefully check of the potential grammar errors is suggested before to submit the revised manuscript, as well as to make the writing more fluid, careful and clean. The use of professional proofreading services is therefore strongly recommended.

To sum up, the paper is interesting and presents original results. However, a major revision is still needed before the paper can be considered for publication in Sustainability.

I wish the author(s) best of luck with their research on this topic

I hope you will find the comments useful to further improve the paper.

I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript soon.

Author Response

***Introduction and Conclusion

First of all, I have found the “1. Introduction” section of the paper quite short and a bit distracting sometimes. I suggest the author(s) to consider that this section could benefit from an answer to the following question: “What is the real-world problem that the study is focusing on? And why is it relevant for academic research?”. Additionally, I strongly suggest to author(s) to make the writing more fluid, introducing the reader in its comprehension and providing a precious instrument to scholars and practitioners. In the current state, it is too dispersive, but I trust that you can rewrite

The conclusions are too short in the current version. My considerations for the “Introduction” section can be extended to this section.

Response 1: Thank you for the comment.

We made some corrections in the introduction part. We emphasized our research question. Also, we added that the article is based on the data from qualitative research conducted in 2022.  That we conducted interviews with owners and heads of WISEs. Moreover, we explained that research contributes to a wider understanding of how social enterprises are contributing to the achievement of SDGs in Lithuania, where, according to above mentioned reports, the cooperation among different stakeholders in achieving SDGs is rather limited. In this way, we explained the real-world problem of study.

The study is relevant to academic research because studies examining WISEs’ efforts to implement the SDGs during the COVID-19 pandemic are lacking. In this article, we aim to determine the role of WISEs are playing in Lithuania in contributing to the implementation of the SDGs during the COVID-19 pandemic (including both the first and second waves).

However, we disagree that conclusions are too short because the conclusions part usually needs to be quite short and concrete.

A minor recommendation is to consider tying the various sections of the paper better. In the current version, it is possible to notice a slight separation among them. Although the structure of the paper is clear, the logical steps that lead from a section to another section are not clear too. The author(s) should try to better connect the various sections of the manuscript.

Response 2: Thank you for your comment. However, we think that the article’s structure is logical and clear.

With regards to the keywords, I suggest you structure them according to a sequence from general to specific or vice versa, not randomly. Additionally, I suggest including the following keywords to improve the searchability of the paper: SDGs, case study, Lithuania

Response 3: Thank you for the comment. We changed our keywords structure.

Afterwards, the references are not reported by following the Author’s guidelines. Please, rewrite them saving typesetter’s time.

 Response 4: the references are created by using the Zotero program which was requested in the author’s guidelines, and it was created automatically.

Further, the current version of the paper contains a lot of grammatical errors and typo. Accordingly, a carefully check of the potential grammar errors is suggested before to submit the revised manuscript, as well as to make the writing more fluid, careful and clean. The use of professional proofreading services is therefore strongly recommended.

Response 5:

We already did proofreading. We bought MDPI English editing services before we submitted the paper. Please find the proof attached. Also, we expect that journal editors will provide the final editing.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf