Guest editorial: Happiness management: key factors for sustainability and organizational communication in the age of Industry 4.0

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-05-2022-576
• Published date: 04 May 2022
• Date: 04 May 2022
• Pages: 449-457
• Subject Matter: Strategy,Corporate governance
• Author: Rafael Ravina Ripoll,Luis M. Romero-Rodríguez,Eduardo Ahumada-Tello

Guest editorial

Rafael Ravina Ripoll, Luis M. Romero-Rodríguez and Eduardo Ahumada-Tello

Happiness management: key factors for sustainability and organizational

communication in the age of Industry 4.0

Happiness is a personal andsocial concept that we all aspire to at some point. In ourlives, it

can come to be considered as a tool that facilitates human development in its various

individual and collective dimensions (Ahumada-Tello, 2019;Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2019a). It is

even a topic that has led to quantitative organizational indices that assess the population’s

happiness and wellbeing. Fromthis perspective, happiness is not only a utopian guide or an

inspirational attribute but alsobecomes an organizing principle to improve governance and

public policy development (Esmark,2019;Acharya, 2021). This is how, in a competitive and

complex environment, happiness can promote the development of a nation if it is oriented

toward improving the productive results of human capital from the integration of actions by

companies and governmentsto raise the perception of this construct (Ahumada-Tello, 2017;

Orekhov et al.,2020).

It is from the advent of an approachbased on human capital that the need arises to recover a

perspective based on people as an essential asset in companies. Under this approach,

concepts such as subjectivewellbeing and happiness are accessed, which are analyzed as

key factors for economic development in a global space where, due to the accelerated

emergence of technologicaland scientif‌ic capabilities in production processes, the focuson

the processes, tools and economic and technological results above the aspirations,

perceptions and satisfaction of the members of the organization (McConvill, 2020). In this

way, happiness management has emerged as a critical element for the development of

organizationsin this new century.

The state of wellbeing has been part of the economic growth policiesof the most developed

countries. This conceptis associated with happiness as a key element that allows individuals

to f‌ind a natural balance between their workand their personal, family, social and emotional

life (Dumitrescu, 2020). Like all conventions of human nature, it is part of the culture of

practically every social group.Despite the positions that philosophers, poets, diplomatsand

even politicians may have, there is always a level of anxiety that has to do with the focus on

this concept, mainly on the subject of good governance, which applies to the extension of

individual perceptionto a collective one (Marsico, 2020).

The need then arises to consider issues such as the members and decision-makers within

the organization and the context in which corporate governance adheres to the study of

happiness as a growth strategy in the organization (McConvill, 2020). In the same way, the

value of participation is incorporated into this perspective because the role of shareholder

members has been studied, and theirinvolvement is among a limited number of factors that

have a signif‌icantcorrelation with the level of happiness that they generate.

Other fundamental aspectsthat have been included in the study of happiness are those that

address healthissues and the promotion of physical activities that improvepeople’s quality of

life. In the literature, we f‌ind studies that have carried out the analysis of happiness

perception indices so that they can be assessed from the development of strategies that

encourage people to start or increase thepractice of exercises that improve their health, as

well as the development of healthy habits that help increase people’s abilities and f‌inally

Rafael Ravina Ripoll is

based at the University of

C

adiz, C

adiz, Spain.

Luis M. Romero-Rodrı

´guez

is based at the Department

of Communication

Sciences and Sociology,

Rey Juan Carlos University,

Madrid, Spain, and ESAI

Business School,

Universidad de

Especialidades Espiritu

Santo, Samborondon,

Ecuador.

Eduardo Ahumada-Tello is

based at the Facultad de

Contadurı

´ay

Administraci

on,

Autonomous University of

Baja California, Mexicali,

Mexico.

DOI 10.1108/CG-05-2022-576 VOL. 22 NO. 3 2022, pp. 449-457, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 jCORPORATE GOVERNANCE jPAGE 449