Coalescence of CSR and happiness for corporate sustainability: a systematic review of literature

The study aims to understand how corporate social responsibility (CSR) and happiness are used together in various research studies to serve the ultimate goal of corporate sustainability (CS), which in turn contributes to sustainable development.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was made using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) method in the two most-reputable databases of Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus, revealing a final list of 54 studies to analyse.

The review concludes that the literature on CSR and happiness provides three main findings: first, concerning the pillars of sustainability, most of the studies concentrate on people, neglecting the planet and profit, second, employees are subject to the highest number of studies as the target of CSR initiative and third, almost all studies employed the hedonic aspect of happiness in CSR literature.

This particular research finding points to the need for developing a comprehensive framework to assess stakeholder happiness from both hedonic and eudaimonic aspects from a CSR perspective which is then represented under the three pillars of sustainability.

To contribute to the ultimate goal of CS, management would design CSR initiatives for all stakeholders to increase both hedonic and eudaimonic happiness of them.

The literature provides reviews of research in CSR and happiness separately; however, there is not any research revealing how these two concepts are used together in studies and how this association could be read to serve the goal of CS.