CSR for Happiness: Corporate determinants of societal happiness as social responsibility

• Date: 01 July 2020
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Benjamin A. Neville,Austin Chia,Margaret L. Kern
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12274

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  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:422–437.© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

Happiness—def ined here as a subje ctive state in wh ich people feel

good and funct ion well (Organization for Eco nomic Co-Operation &

development [OECD], 2013)—h as garnered significant s cholarly and

public policy i nterest in recent years , as the limitations of excl usively

using economic m etrics to assess s ocial welfare have become clear

(Diener, 2006; Jones et al., 2016). Discourse has led governments

in over 40 countrie s and intergovernm ental agencies s uch as the

OECD, the United Natio ns (UN), and the World Health O rganization

(WHO) to conside r happiness as an import ant societal outcome t hat

should be direc tly monitored a nd enhanced (Die ner & Seligman,

2018; Stiglitz, Se n, & Fitoussi, 2009). Recent r eorientations of publi c

policy focus to e ncompass measures of societal h appiness coincide

with calls by org anizational sch olars to widen conve ntional notions

of social welfare b eyond economic welfare alon e (Mitchell, Weaver,

Agle, Bailey, & Car lson, 2016). However, while the so cial sciences,

public health , and economics have bee n at the vanguard of scholar ly

and policy debates on societal happiness, organizational scholars

have, to date, only weig hed in from the fringes (Ju dge & Kammeyer-

Mueller, 2011).

Within this mac ro context, we bel ieve that organiza tional

scholars can m eaningfully intersec t with and contribute to exta nt

interdisciplinary scholarship and public policy discourse by ex-

ploring and exa mining the outcom es of various corp orate deter-

minants of socie tal happiness. All lega l forms of social institution s

(e.g., public, n on-for-profit, media, b usiness of governmen t) have

the potential to sh ape societal ha ppiness. In this a rticle, we spe-

cifically foc us on the contribu tions of propriet ary for-profit cor-

porations to soc ietal happiness. Corp orations are pervasive so cial

Received: 29 May 2019 

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  Revised: 4 Februa ry 2020 

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  Accepted: 5 Febru ary 2020

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12274

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

CSR for Happiness: Corporate determinants of societal

happiness as social responsibility

Austin Chia1,2  | Margaret L. Kern1 | Benjamin A. Neville2

1Centre for Positive Psychology, Melbourne

Graduate Sc hool of Education, T he

University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC,

Australia

2Department of Management and

Marketing, Faculty of Business and

Economics, T he University of Me lbourne,

Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Correspondence

Austin Chia, Faculty of Business &

Economics, T he University of Me lbourne,

Level 6, 111 Barry St reet, VIC, 3010,

Australia.

Email: chiaa@unimelb.edu.au

Abstract

Over the past dec ade, societal happiness has i ncreasingly been considered im portant

to public policy init iatives globally, suppor ted by interdisciplinar y scholarly eff orts

spanning the social s ciences, economic s, and public health . Curiously, despite for-

profit corporatio ns being core social institutions of mo dern societies, scant attent ion

has been given to the soc ial role and responsibil ities of corporations i n relation to

societal happine ss. In this articl e, we review and integrate rese arch from positive

psychology and re lated disciplines to examine happiness as a so cial outcome of cor-

porate activit y. We propose that corpor ations have a social responsibility to res pect,

preserve, and a dvance people's right to, an d experience of, happiness—whi ch we

term CSR for Happiness. Within the existing literature, stakeholder happiness has gen-

erally been narr owly conceptualized in hed onic terms and has faile d to consider the

broader impact s of corporate activities on societ al happiness. Drawing on advances

in psychological t heory and research, we provide a ho listic conceptualization of hap-

piness, which inclu des objective, subjective, hedo nic, and eudaimonic dimensions of

happiness. We offer an in tegrative conceptual framework , which includes the macro-

to-micro and micro-to-macro pat hways through which corporatio ns directly and indi-

rectly impact upon societal happiness. Finally, we consider implications of happiness

research for the inter sections of business and societ y.

    

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institution s and what they do and h ow they engage with p eople

within the communities in which they operate inevitably contrib-

ute to how the gener al public feels and functi ons. As observed by

Harrison and W icks (2013, p. 113), “happines s is just as impor t-

ant to a supplier or cu stomer as it is to an emp loyee.” Given the

embeddedne ss of corporatio ns in daily life, noti ons of corporate

social respons ibility (CSR) nee d to broadly encompass t he dynamic

ways in which corporations’ impact upon human development and

the quality of li fe of societal cons tituents (Ren ouard & Ezvan,

2018). We suggest that so cietal happine ss is relevant to org ani-

zational schol ars, business p ractition ers, and societ y at large, as

it is something th at is universally valued, imp acts upon numerous

socially value d outcomes, and is ethical ly imperative.

We contend that corpo rations have a social r esponsibilit y to re-

spect, pre serve, and adv ance people's rig ht to, and experien ce of,

happiness, which we call CSR for Happine ss. While we recognize that

organization al researcher s have made great str ides in the stud y of

happiness within intra-organizational contexts (cf. Fisher, 2010), less

attention has b een given to the boundary- a nd level-spanning effec ts

of corporate ac tivities on the hap piness of society over all. Notably, im-

portant work on stakeholder happiness by Harrison and Wick s (2013)

and Jones and Fel ps (2013a) have leveraged hap piness concept s to

offer new insight s on how stakeho lders’ approp riate value and how

organization s might manage value c reation. However, we argu e that

while stakeholder happiness is managerially useful, existing concepts

of stakeholder happiness are narrowly conceptualized in hedonic terms

and are primari ly concerned wit h enhancing inst rumental out comes

for firms. CS R research has tended to over use corporate finan cial per-

formance (CFP) as the dominant rationale for legitimatizing corporate

social initiatives, which has constrained intellectual imagination and

insights around the dynamic relationships between corporations and

society (Mar golis & Walsh, 2003). As such , we question the adequa cy

of the stakeholder happiness concept for understanding the breadth

and reach of corporations in shaping societal happiness. Drawing on

theory and r esearch stemm ing from the psycho logical scien ces, we

offer a more holi stic conceptual ization of happine ss to demonstr ate

how corporate ef fects on objective s ocietal conditions migh t cascade

to subjective happiness outcomes at the individual-level.

We propose CSR for Hap piness as a new concept that gives pr i-

macy to the intere sts of society and aims to ex pand the boundaries

of CSR scholar ship to include activ ities that directly b enefit the hap-

piness of societ al constituents. We aim to pr ovide an expansive per-

spective and r icher unders tanding of happ iness at the inter face of

business and so ciety that has not previously be en addressed in the

literature. We exam ine how corporate i nteractions w ith society at

the individual-level might translate to improvements in objective so-

cietal conditi ons. In doing so, we highlight t he conceptual limitati ons

of stakeholder happiness and demonstrate the relevance of societal

happiness as a C SR concern.

Importan tly, while it is conceivab le that there is a lin k between

CSR for Happine ss and firm per formance, we sug gest, along wit h

numerous other scholars (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2018; Waddock,

2014), that happiness is a va luable outcome in and of itsel f, not as a

means to a financ ial end. Rather, this article s erves as a springboard

for an alternative scholarly agenda on societal happiness, whereby

instrumental societal outcome serves as the generative core of the

CSR for Happine ss concept.

We begin by unpackin g the holistic conceptualiz ations of happi-

ness that have arise n over the past several de cades across a range of

disciplines, which extends far beyond the common hedonic-focused

conceptualizat ions of happiness t hat appear in the e xtant stake -

holder happiness literature. We situate stakeholder happiness within

this discourse and reveal its limitations for directly addressing soci-

etal happiness. We review numerous individual- and societal-level

benefits of ha ppiness and prov ide a more nuanced ex planation of

the conceptual f eatures of happin ess. Next, we ar ticulate the need

for CSR for Happi ness and highlight how it add resses the insufficie n-

cies of stakeholder happiness by identifying societal benefit as the

primary con cern. Specifi cally, we incorpora te research on the v ar-

ious benefit s of happiness to de monstrate the d ynamic macro-to-

micro and micro-to-macro pathways in which corporations affect

the various dim ensions of happine ss. We conclude with a n inte-

grative concept ual framework fo r CSR for Happines s and discuss its

implications for practice and research.

2 | CONCEPTUALIZING HAPPINESS

HOLISTICALLY

“Happiness” is a n abstract and co mplex phenomen on that is perceived

differently across cultures, and historical contexts (Oishi, Graham,

Kesebir, & Galinha, 2013), yet , it is also somethi ng that is generall y

universally d esired by individ uals and societi es. Many Western gov-

ernments are f ounded in part on th e utilitarian objec t of providing the

greatest happ iness to the greatest numb er of people (Duncan, 2010).

Indeed, intellectual and philosophical endeavors to understand the

nature and cultivation of happiness date back to antiquity and remains

a focal topic of contemporary philosophical and scientific inquiry

(Haidt, 2006). Depending on one's ethical philosophical allegiance, the

nature of happine ss can be argued a s comprising of ple asurable ex-

periences (e.g., Benthanism), living virtuously (e.g., virtue ethics), or a

combination of th e two. Here, we use the te rm “happiness” to de scribe

feeling and fun ctioning well ac ross various doma ins of life. Other s

have labeled this co ncept as “wellbei ng,” “flourishin g,” “thriving,” or

“optimal funct ioning,” with litt le consistency o r consensus within o r

across fields (Ke rn et al., 2019). Across histor y, philosophers of vario us

traditions have q uestioned the nature of and p athways to happiness,

with little re conciliation (Kern et al., 2019; Kesebi r & Diener, 2008). It

is beyond the scop e of this article to r eview the philoso phical land-

scape, advance a particular philosophical position, or identify distinc-

tive terms. Inst ead, we predominantly draw on c onceptualizations of

happiness fro m the behavioral a nd social science s, with a part icular

focus on the posit ive psychology per spective. We opt to use the ter m

“happiness,” except when specifically quoting others.

In recent decades, interdisciplinary scholarship spanning psy-

chology, medicine, public health, and economics have offered rich