PONE-D-24-42561Research on the Influence Mechanism of Work-Family Conflict on Employees' Proactive Behaviors-A Moderated Mediator ModelPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wan,

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.

1. The paper requires language verification.

2. The representation of key variables should be standardized. For instance, terms such as "employees' proactive behavior," "employee initiative behavior," and "Employee active behavior" should be unified.

3. The dataset for Mplus and factor models is not provided, rendering data availability incomplete.

4. The clarity of the figures is poor; it is recommended that they be replaced according to standard specifications.

5. Regarding the sample size for cross-level analysis, scholars have established clear and stringent criteria. The authors have not disclosed pertinent critical information, preventing us from determining whether these standards are met. Please note that this is extremely important as it impacts the rigor of the research methodology and the scientific validity of the results.

6. It is advised that the authors exercise greater rigor in their manuscript, conducting multiple reviews prior to submission to avoid obvious errors.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 02 2025 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,

Jianpeng Fan

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. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: [National Natural Science Foundation of China Special Project: "Research on Digital Human Resource Development and Management within Human-Machine Interaction Scenarios" (7234-2027)�The 6th Phase of the "521 Project" for Science and Technology Funding in Lianyungang City: "Research on the Pathways for Lianyungang to Expeditiously Build a Prominent Modern Ocean Industrial System" (LYG0 6521 202391)]. Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

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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: No

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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: Dear Editor,

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to review this manuscript. I have read the complete manuscript and found it to be of good quality. However, there is always room for improvement. Below are some changes that need to be incorporated before publication:

The abstract is very brief and not well-written. It should be expanded and improved for clarity.

The introduction is overall well-written and logically coherent. However, it lacks the latest references, which could help strengthen the research gap.

In the literature review, the authors developed strong arguments on," "Research on the Influence Mechanism of Work-Family Conflict on Employees' Proactive Behaviors-A Moderated Mediator Model" However, there are no recent references that support the literature with relevant theories.

The methods section should be clearer to the reader. On what basis were these organizations from Nanjing, Hefei, Nantong, Lianyungang and other regions? This section must be more understandable.

The results section is well-written and well-explained by the authors. The proposed questions are clearly addressed and interpreted effectively.

Limitations and future directions are sound clear.

Reviewer #2: 1. Please provide rationale for the sample using g power as effect size is low.

2.reliabilty statistic must show other measures of normality data

3.provide rationale foe r direct effects not being normal

4.data must be provided fully in repository , for mplus software.

Reviewer #3: - Title: Remove the phrase "(research on)" from the title and adjust writing style for accuracy and conciseness.

Grammar and Language

- Numerous grammatical and word usage errors are present throughout the manuscript. The whole manuscript would benefit from rewording by a native English editor for clarity and improved readability.

Introduction

- First Sentence needs a supporting reference to provide context, similarly to many sentences in the whole manuscript that claim fact without references.

- The phrase "As the main force of high-quality development" is unclear; specify what is being referred to here.

- Paragraph 2: ("When discussing the relevant...") is poorly structured, with overly long sentences. Revise to improve readability and flow.

Theoretical Framework

- Resource Conservation and Social Exchange Theories: The connection between these theories and the study is inadequately established. Strengthen the theoretical alignment to clarify relevance.

- Propositions: Some propositions are ambiguous and may mislead readers, such as the use of "both" in Paragraph 2, which lacks clarity on what it refers to.

Background, Aim, and Motivation

- Provide a clearer explanation (background) of the existing literature and identify the research gap that this study addresses.

- Clearly state the aim of the study within the introduction.

- Explain the key research question and motivation for conducting this study.

Terminology and Consistency

- Avoid inconsistencies by using terms such as "employee initiative behavior" and “individual's initiative” and just use the same term of "proactive behavior” to match the terminology used elsewhere.

Theory and Hypotheses Development

- Subsection 2.2: The statement "Therefore, work-family conflict has a positive impact on emotional exhaustion" is presented as a result without sufficient justification. Clarify why this impact is considered positive and provide a theoretical basis.

- Gendered Language: The manuscript inconsistently uses “he” to refer to individuals, excluding "she." Revise to include gender-neutral language.

- Psychological Resource: The statement "As a psychological resource, positive emotions..." needs clarification. Define what is meant by "psychological resource."

Hypothesis Development

- Hypothesis 3 and 4 (Subsection 2.3) lack a solid theoretical foundation. Expand and substantiate hypotheses with additional references to strengthen theoretical support

Section 3: Research Design

- Participants and Exclusion Criteria:

- Clarification on "Minors": Define what is meant by "minors" and explain why they were excluded from the survey.

- Data Analysis Justification:

- Provide a rationale for selecting Mplus as the data analysis software and explain its suitability for testing the proposed hypotheses.

- Data Collection Method:

- Clarify Sampling Process: Detail how participants were recruited for the study (e.g., through an online survey or other method) to improve transparency.

- Section 3.3: Questionnaire and Measurement Scales:

- Clarify "Mature Internal and External Articles": Explain what is meant by "mature internal and external articles." If this refers to validated sources or established scales, specify this for clarity.

- Measurement Value Explanation: The phrase "The measured value of the variable was the average value of each item" needs further explanation. Specify whether this refers to scale scoring or another calculation.

- Clearly explain what "After Z-HCWS is removed" refers to in the table (1) to avoid confusion.

- The current interpretation lacks discussion of the findings with relating to exist research. Explain the significance of these results in the study’s broader context.

- Clarify Moderation: The phrase "positively moderated" may be misleading without an explanation. Define how moderation affects the results and consider including effect sizes to convey the magnitude of differences.

- The in-text citations have not been correctly inserted. Please follow the appropriate reference style.

..............

The paper over is promising, and the topic is interesting. However, the article needs further development.

Reviewer #4: First of all, I would like to thank the authors for their efforts as well as for the opportunity to review the manuscript, "Research on the Influence Mechanism of Work-Family Conflict on Employees' Proactive Behaviors—A Moderated Mediator Model."

- The abstract is well-written and effectively represents the work that has been conducted.

- The research context is clearly identifiable.

- The theoretical elements are well introduced with appropriate bibliographic sourcing.

- The methodology used is relevant.

- The measurement tools employed are suitable, and the psychometric metrics are satisfactory.

- The discussion elements are well-structured and written, allowing for practical insights to be drawn from the results obtained.

1/ In the introduction, there are some instances of typos, for example, “job characteristics[3]between employees and organizations[4]few scholars have also[5].”

2/ Generally, it seems that different citation methods have been used throughout the manuscript.

3/ The manuscript would benefit from simplifying certain introductory elements, particularly section 2.2, “The mediating effect of emotional exhaustion on employees' proactive behavior,” whose extensiveness may lead to confusion. Therefore, I kindly ask you to consider reducing the density of this section for clarity.

4/ In the methods section, the manuscript would benefit from standardizing the way numerical data is reported (e.g., “26.92 percent” and “34.62%” later on).

5/ In the results section, I suggest considering standardizing the data reporting and providing an intermediate conclusion at the end of each individual analysis, so that readers can follow the authors' reasoning without needing to go back to the introduction section to read the hypotheses.

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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: Yes:  yumna ali

Reviewer #3: Yes:  Badr Albaram

Reviewer #4: Yes:  Alizée Poli

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[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.

PONE-D-24-42561R1The Influence Mechanism of Work-Family Conflict on Employees' Proactive Behaviors-A Moderated Mediator ModelPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wan,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 12 2025 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,

Jianpeng Fan

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.

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

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. 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 #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. 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 #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. 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 #2: 1.Typing and language errors persist. Please go through the whole document carefully. Such as, after reference [19], word " eployees" is there.

2."Some of the items were inconvenient to be expressed in one item Control variables" is very ambigous. What does that mean?

3. Gpower and sample validation is still missing.

4.Standard error is not required for normality.

5.Provide IRB statement and letter of consent

Reviewer #3: Thank you for addressing most of my comments. I hope the revisions improve your manuscript. Below are some additional suggestions that may further enhance your work:

1. It is recommended to refer to studies as citations in "5.1 Main Conclusions and Contributions." For instance, in the statement, “Different from the previous studies on employee proactive behavior from the perspective of social…”, and in “Third, in the existing studies on the high-commitment work system…”, you should cite the relevant research to substantiate your arguments.

2. Please resolve instances of "Error! Reference source not found." in the manuscript to ensure all citations are correctly formatted.

3. Certain sentences require grammatical corrections for improved readability. For example:

- “In order to test hypothesis 3 and 4. In this study, Mplus software was used to analyze the data.”

- “Emotional exhaustion (EE) is the intermediary variable at the individual level, and employee active behavior (PB) is the dependent variable at the individual level for SEM path analysis, as shown in the following table ”

- “The reliability analysis results are shown in Table 1.” it should be Table 3.

4. You mentioned: (“Control variables according to the demographic characteristics variables proposed by previous studies that may be related to the subject of this study to some extent, this paper mainly selects employee Gender, Age, Education, and LNTenure as the control variables.”)

In this case, these variables should be analyzed as control variables in a manner consistent with other variables in your analysis.

5. you stated that :"this paper systematically reviews the literature,".. If your paper includes a systematic literature review, consider illustrating the review process using the PRISMA criteria for clarity and methodological rigor.

6. Throughout the manuscript, there are grammar, punctuation, and wording errors. It is highly recommended to have the manuscript reviewed and proofread by a native English language expert.

I wish you all the best with your manuscript and its publication.

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7. 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 #2: Yes:  yumna ali

Reviewer #3: Yes:  Badr Albaram

**********

[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.

PONE-D-24-42561R2The Influence Mechanism of Work-Family Conflict on Employees' Proactive Behaviors-A Moderated Mediator ModelPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wan,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 07 2025 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,

Jianpeng Fan

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.

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

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. 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 #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

**********

4. 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

5. 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 #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

6. 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 #2: Dear author,

Please add rationale for not mentioning the minimum sample size for structual equtation modelling with citation.

Kindly, draw on more detail for sampling. The inclusion criteria needs to be added for companies/enterprises and teams.

Please eradicate any casual pharases like " so on"

Reviewer #3: I strongly advise the authors to check the manuscript with a native proofreader as it has a lot mistakes. These are some:

Title: Consider using a colon (:) instead of a dash (–) before "A Moderated Mediator Model" to align with proper title formatting.

Keywords: Ensure consistency in capitalization.

Introduction: Rewrite the phrase "businesses-focused HRM tactics" to include the full term before introducing the abbreviation for HRM.

Literature Review: Include the year of publication in parentheses after mentioning the authors. For example:

• "According to empirical research, Xu Yan (XXXX) discovered that work-family conflict has a significant negative impact on employees' work performance."

• "Chinese scholar Li Yifei et al. (XXXX) discovered through empirical analysis that work-family conflict negatively affects job satisfaction."

• "Zhang Junwei et al. (XXXX), using the resource conservation theory, found that work-family conflict significantly affects performance."

• Similarly, for Min's research, add: "Min (XXXX) stated that a high-commitment work system encourages initiative and creativity while reducing negative emotions."

2.2 The Mediating Effect of Emotional Exhaustion on Employees' Proactive Behavior: Ensure the indentation format of this section is consistent with other subheadings in the manuscript.

Clarifications and Edits:

• Proofread several sentences such as: " A person who experiences negative emotional reactions will be less enthusiastic and have a worse attitude at work, which will lead to burnout and a loss of commitment to the company. could possibly trigger the trend toward turnover [34].

• Replace "data" with appropriate word in: "In light of this data, we put forth the following hypothesis."

• Improve punctuation and flow, for example in: " putting in place employee involvement plans and flexible work designs to encourage diverse communication and hearing what staff members have to say [40] Employees are viewed as partners in the high-commitment work system, and the company can truly understand their requirements and communicate the corporate goal to them through active communication and other channels. to be acknowledged by workers and, via emotional dedication, to achieve the shared objectives and values of the company and workers."

• Replace "theories" with "hypotheses" in: "In light of this, the following hypotheses are put forth."

• Rephrase the paragraphs to place the hypothesis statement at the end. For example, in the sentence: " Hypothesis 3: The impact of emotional weariness on proactive conduct by employees is negatively moderated by a high-commitment work structure. This means that companies that have adopted a high-commitment work system have less of an effect on employees' proactive behavior than companies that have not adopted one or that have low levels of commitment in their HRM practices."

Clarifications on Terminology:

Clarify whether you are referring to "theory" or "hypothesis" in all applicable sentences, for example: " In addition to the aforementioned theory, we propose that the degree of high-commitment work systems that firms have in place may also have an impact on how work-family conflict affects employees' active behavior through emotional weariness."

And proofread and rephrase this sentence for clarity and accuracy: "Establishing a high-commitment work system can provide employees with human capital (skills and knowledge needed for tasks), emotional resources (positive emotional states), and social resources (a sense of security, accomplishment, and self-realization), encouraging productive behaviors that benefit the organization."

And Clarify the term "LNTenure."

And The sign "—" (dash) appears frequently in the manuscript. Proofread and replace it with a consistent and appropriate symbol.

4.5 Hypothesis Testing: Use plural form (e.g., "Hypotheses Testing") for this section title.

Tables: Ensure all tables are properly aligned and formatted to fit within the page, such as Table 12 and Table 13.

Citations: When mentioning "studies" or "research," always include proper citations to support the statements.

Variables items: Please list all items or state sample for each variable for items that you used in your adapted/adopted items, for clarity and credibility

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7. 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 #2: Yes:  yumna ali

Reviewer #3: Yes:  Badr Albaram

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[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.]

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The Influence Mechanism of Work-Family Conflict on Employees' Proactive Behaviors-A Moderated Mediator Model

PONE-D-24-42561R3

Dear Dr. Wan,

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.

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Kind regards,

Jianpeng Fan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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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 #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #3: All the best! The authors have addressed our comments. However, there are minor typos that I believe will be reviewed before publication.

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Reviewer #3: Yes:  Badr Albaram

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