Does controlling shareholders’ share pledge exacerbate excessive financialization of enterprises?—Evidence from performance pressure perspective

Yue Xie; Tianhui Wang; Jinhua Zhang; Na Wang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288705

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 14, 2023
23 May 2023 Decision Letter - Chenguel Mohamed Bechir, Editor PONE-D-23-11287Does Controlling Shareholders' Share Pledge Exacerbate Excessive Financialization of Enter-prises? ——Evidence from Performance Pressure PerspectivePLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wang, 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: The authors need to link their findings more strongly to context, highlight their economic, academic/research and policy/practice implications. I may suggest the authors add the discussion of the findings in the Chinese context. How their findings are different from other studies? What can we learn from the Chinese context? ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 07 2023 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, Chenguel Mohamed Bechir, Phd HDR Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. 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: The authors need to link their findings more strongly to context, highlight their economic, academic/research and policy/practice implications. I may suggest the authors add the discussion of the findings in the Chinese context. How their findings are different from other studies? What can we learn from the Chinese context? [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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: Yes Reviewer #2: 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: No ****** 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 authors need to link their findings more strongly to context, highlight their economic, academic/research and policy/practice implications. I may suggest the authors add the discussion of the findings in the Chinese context. How their findings are different from other studies? What can we learn from the Chinese context? Reviewer #2: An interesting topic, check for grammar and conjugation errors and add the article at the end of the introduction The database is recent and the analyses are very impressive I congratulate the authors for this article ****** 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: Yes: Moncef Guizani Reviewer #2: 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288705.r001
Revision 1
24 Jun 2023 Author Response We would like to thank the referees and the editor for their helpful comments and constructive suggestions. We have revised the paper accordingly, the major changes are marked in blue. In the following, we give our responses to the reviewer. And we mention the changes made in the revised manuscript. All of the major changes are marked in blue in the revised version. Response to the Academic Editor: Editor’s additional comments: 1. 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. Authors’ Response: The authors would like to thank the Editor for the comment. We have addressed the comments of the Reviewer. In the following, we give our responses to the comments of the Reviewer. 2. The authors need to link their findings more strongly to context, highlight their economic, academic/research and policy/practice implications. I may suggest the authors add the discussion of the findings in the Chinese context. How their findings are different from other studies? What can we learn from the Chinese context? Authors’ Response: Thanks for the comment. We have added the research significance in the introduction in the revised manuscript. At the same time, we have revised the expression of contribution at the end of the introduction and the expression of the conclusion in the revised manuscript. Response to the Editor: Journal Requirements: 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Authors’ Response: Thanks for reminding me. I have modified the paper format according to the journal template. If the format needs to be modified, please inform me again by email. Thank you. 2. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. Authors’ Response: Thanks for reminding me. The correct information is as follows: Funding: This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 72002201), URL of funder website: https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/; And the National Social Science Fund of China (grant number: 21BJY256), URL of funder website: http://fz.people.com.cn/skygb/sk/index.php/index/seach/ 3. 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. Authors’ Response: Thanks for reminding me. After careful examination, the references we quoted are complete and correct. We did not cite the retracted paper. In the contribution at the end of the introduction, we add the literature that is more similar to our study, namely 5-7 in the references. Except for the three new references, we have not changed the rest of the references. Response to the Reviewer #1 The reviewer has the following comments: 1. The authors need to link their findings more strongly to context, highlight their economic, academic/research and policy/practice implications. Authors’ Response: Thanks for the comment. We have added the research significance in the introduction in the revised manuscript. 2. I may suggest the authors add the discussion of the findings in the Chinese context. Authors’ Response: Thanks for this suggestion. We have revised the expression of the conclusion in the revised manuscript. 3. How their findings are different from other studies? What can we learn from the Chinese context? Authors’ Response: Thanks for this suggestion. We have revised the expression of contribution at the end of the introduction in the revised manuscript. Response to the Reviewer #2 The reviewer has the following comments: 1. An interesting topic, check for grammar and conjugation errors and add the article at the end of the introduction. The database is recent and the analyses are very impressive. I congratulate the authors for this article. Authors’ Response: Thank you for your suggestions and affirmation of our paper. We have revised the grammar and conjugation errors in the revised manuscript. At the same time, we have added some articles similar to our paper at the end of the introduction in the revised manuscript. We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list all the changes but marked in blue in revised paper. We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288705.r002
4 Jul 2023 Decision Letter - Chenguel Mohamed Bechir, Editor Does Controlling Shareholders' Share Pledge Exacerbate Excessive Financialization of Enterprises? ——Evidence from Performance Pressure Perspective PONE-D-23-11287R1 Dear Dr. Tianhui Wang 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, Chenguel Mohamed Bechir, Phd HDR Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): thank you for your corrections and response Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288705.r003
Formally Accepted
10 Jul 2023 Acceptance Letter - Chenguel Mohamed Bechir, Editor PONE-D-23-11287R1 Does controlling shareholders' share pledge exacerbate excessive financialization of enterprises? —Evidence from performance pressure perspective Dear Dr. Wang: 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. Chenguel Mohamed Bechir Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288705.r004

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