RT editorial
T1 Guest editorial: Happiness management: key factors for sustainability and organizational communication in the age of Industry 4.0
A1 Ravina Ripoll, Rafael
A1 Ahumada-Tello, Eduardo
A1 Romero-Rodríguez, Luis M.
A2 Organización de Empresas
K1 Happiness Management
K1 Industry 4.0
K1 r sustainability
K1 organizational communication
AB Happiness is a personal and social concept that we all aspire to at some point. In our lives, itcan come to be considered as a tool that facilitates human development in its variousindividual and collective dimensions (Ahumada-Tello, 2019; Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2019a). It iseven a topic that has led to quantitative organizational indices that assess the population’shappiness and wellbeing. From this perspective, happiness is not only a utopian guide or aninspirational attribute but also becomes an organizing principle to improve governance andpublic policy development (Esmark, 2019; Acharya, 2021). This is how, in a competitive andcomplex environment, happiness can promote the development of a nation if it is orientedtoward improving the productive results of human capital from the integration of actions bycompanies and governments to raise the perception of this construct (Ahumada-Tello, 2017;Orekhov et al., 2020).It is from the advent of an approach based on human capital that the need arises to recover aperspective based on people as an essential asset in companies. Under this approach,concepts such as subjective wellbeing and happiness are accessed, which are analyzed askey factors for economic development in a global space where, due to the acceleratedemergence of technological and scientific capabilities in production processes, the focus onthe processes, tools and economic and technological results above the aspirations,perceptions and satisfaction of the members of the organization (McConvill, 2020). In thisway, happiness management has emerged as a critical element for the development oforganizations in this new century.The state of wellbeing has been part of the economic growth policies of the most developedcountries. This concept is associated with happiness as a key element that allows individualsto find a natural balance between their work and their personal, family, social and emotionallife (Dumitrescu, 2020). Like all conventions of human nature, it is part of the culture ofpractically every social group. Despite the positions that philosophers, poets, diplomats andeven politicians may have, there is always a level of anxiety that has to do with the focus onthis concept, mainly on the subject of good governance, which applies to the extension ofindividual perception to a collective one (Marsico, 2020).The need then arises to consider issues such as the members and decision-makers withinthe organization and the context in which corporate governance adheres to the study ofhappiness as a growth strategy in the organization (McConvill, 2020). In the same way, thevalue of participation is incorporated into this perspective because the role of shareholdermembers has been studied, and their involvement is among a limited number of factors thathave a significant correlation with the level of happiness that they generate.Other fundamental aspects that have been included in the study of happiness are those thataddress health issues and the promotion of physical activities that improve people’s quality oflife. In the literature, we find studies that have carried out the analysis of happinessperception indices so that they can be assessed from the development of strategies thatencourage people to start or increase the practice of exercises that improve their health, aswell as the development of healthy habits that help increase people’s abilities and finallybased at the University of develop their self-confidence and look for alternatives that confirm the result of a deep analysis where, through the use of quality of life, areas for improvement can be found (Leeand Yoon, 2020; Zhou et al., 2021; Danish and Nawaz, 2022).We must not forget that, in the past two years, the COVID-19 outbreak has occurred in theworld and that it has caused serious challenges for governments, companies and people ingeneral. The environment surrounding organizations, people and governments, in general,has been complex and with a high level of challenges to sustain socioeconomic operations.The effects of this pandemic have not only attacked international markets and directlyimpacted the economic growth of practically the entire world. Nevertheless, they have alsohad a high emotional effect on individuals who bring their concerns and feelings to socialnetworks. These public demonstrations can help assess alert actions as natural affections tohappiness and announcements of opening of activities to improve the same constructconsiderably. It is, therefore, important to highlight that the regions with the greatestvulnerability to the virus are the ones that have deteriorated the most in their perception ofhappiness, and it is immediately manifested in the applications that individuals use tocommunicate on social networks. (Duan et al., 2021; Feng and Zhong, 2021).To conclude this approach to the phenomenon of people’s happiness and especially itseffect on the state of wellbeing and its implications for organizations, it is important toconsider that there are other aspects where the study of this construct requires an adequateanalysis. These include information and communication technologies, which have influencedhuman beings over time by disseminating knowledge, saving work time, facilitatingcommunications, increasing communication networks, as well as recently facilitating accessto information through the use of artificial intelligence and increasing the intellectual capacityof individuals and organizations alike (Suhaimi et al., 2019; You, 2021). In addition to growingproductivity, improving transparency and governance, being a fundamental axis in theconstruction of social capital and the empowerment of individuals through the construction ofknowledge, they have also become a latent risk for the privacy of individuals, they haveaffected the labor structure and disappeared jobs, they have also impacted behavior habitsin terms of a sedentary lifestyle and physical activity and finally, they have generated a newform of social classism where the digital world is now the way to differentiate groups. All theseaspects have been evaluated in different environments to see how ICTs have built a newnotion of happiness and the difference between countries (Maiti and Awasthi, 2020; Nun  ˜ezBarriopedro et al., 2020; Ravina-Ripoll et al., 2019b; Ahumada-Tello et al., 2018). ICTs havealso impacted the development and planning of cities as an alternative to improve the qualityof life (Zheng and Yang, 2019; Souza et al., 2019; Musa et al., 2020) and in the use of greentechnologies (Anand and Gaur, 2019).The study of happiness now needs to be covered to carry out the proposal of strategies inorganizations and their governance scheme. People are the essential value of a company,basically because they are responsible for the development of knowledge and, therefore, theacquisition of value in the products and services offered to the customer market. This elementis highly complex, and the study of its motivations, emotions and intentions has beenrelegated to productivity and profitability. However, in a complex environment such as theone now observed globally, it is required that people and their perceptions be taken intoconsideration to increase companies’ survival.
PB Emerald
SN 1472-0701
YR 2022
FD 2022-05-04
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/31294
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/31294
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 10-nov-2026