Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 9, 2021
Decision Letter - Oathokwa Nkomazana, Editor

PONE-D-21-07002An Assessment of Organisational Culture in Australian Hospitals Using Employee Online ReviewsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pavithra,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR: Please insert comments here and delete this placeholder text when finished. Be sure to:

  • Indicate which changes you require for acceptance versus which changes you recommend
  • Address any conflicts between the reviews so that it's clear which advice the authors should follow
  • Provide specific feedback from your evaluation of the manuscript
Please ensure that your decision is justified on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not, for example, on novelty or perceived impact.

For Lab, Study and Registered Report Protocols: These article types are not expected to include results but may include pilot data. 

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 07 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Oathokwa Nkomazana, MD MSC PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Thank you for an interesting study. Please note comment from Reviewer 3; especially about the vocal minority eclipsing the silent majority. Also note comments by Reviewer 2 about the methods.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The aim of this study was to analyse content of reviews posted by hospital employees on three job websites. It is understandable that performing rigorous statistics might have been a challenge given the small samples. Organizational culture is a complex concept, this study provides a baseline on which future studies could build on. Did the authors considered qualitative content analysis regarding trustworthiness?

Reviewer #2: There is a lot of details that needed to be provided to strengthen this study. A lot of statements across the study sections introduce ideas that are not well expanded or tied together. The methods section is confusing and has gaps that if revised could help improve the study, including clarity on how and why 103 reviews were extracted for the study period – sample size determination? how was data abstracted from the reviews? Providing the online review (i.e. details of the elements captured by these surveys) is also a critical addition that could be made to help provide clarity on study results and discussions. I find this study to be technically lacking with insufficient depth in the analysis and presentation of the results – the insufficient introduction also adds to this limitation.

Reviewer #3: The article is well written, methodologically sound, and relevant as it seeks to answer an important question: with the proliferation of online reviews of health care providers and health facilities, how good are these reviews at providing information related to organizational culture? The answer is that they can be quite good, with some caveats. My comments are pretty minor, and the authors should feel free to accept them or not. I thought it would be interesting to have a table that compares data/findings between former employees and current employees. I also through that in the discussion it might be worth expanding upon the risk that, with online reviews, the opinions of a "vocal" minority might end up overwhelming those of a quite majority

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 1

Response to reviewer #1:

Thank you for your comments.

Yes, we did consider qualitative content analysis. However, we have limited the qualitative thematic content analysis to deductive coding to assess whether the content of the reviews met the criteria across traditional assessment instruments and tools. So as to not infringe on copyrighted content by reproducing snippets of content from the online reviews, we did not perform inductive analysis, as we are not allowed to reproduce user reviews or extracts from these reviews within the article.

Due to the general nature of the comments, and restrictions resulting from the global pandemic, follow-up interviews with hospital staff to verify the trustworthiness of these reviews was not possible at this time. We have reflected on the limitations arising from using online reviews including the risk of bias in these reviews in lines 326-332.

Response to reviewer #2: We have updated the methods section to specify that this set of 103 reviews comprised all reviews posted by users that were intelligible, referred to the right organisation and had been moderated and posted by the specified websites. (Additions made: lines 133-135)

Data were abstracted by reading the reviews online and abstracting information as described in the methods section (p 6-7)

We cannot reproduce the surveys used on each website due to copyright restrictions. However, we have described the rating systems offered by each site and how the relevant categories were used for thematic analysis between lines 139-190.

Thank you for your inputs in helping us revise our article for improved clarity. We have added additional references and information in the introduction to elaborate on key ideas addressed in the article, between lines 81-92, 95-99 and 103-109.

Response to reviewer #3: Thank you for your comments. We have revised our manuscript to include your suggestions.

We have included a table presenting information around the currency of employment for employees who had posted online reviews where this information was available. This has been presented in lines 259-260 and 264-266.

We have also expanded our reflection about the self-selection bias and how this could arise from a vocal minority. We have referenced relevant literature to support the additions to our manuscript (lines 334-341).

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_R1.docx
Decision Letter - Oathokwa Nkomazana, Editor

An Assessment of Organisational Culture in Australian Hospitals Using Employee Online Reviews

PONE-D-21-07002R1

Dear Dr. Pavithra,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Oathokwa Nkomazana, MD MSC PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Oathokwa Nkomazana, Editor

PONE-D-21-07002R1

An Assessment of Organisational Culture in Australian Hospitals Using Employee Online Reviews

Dear Dr. Pavithra:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Oathokwa Nkomazana

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .