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The purpose of this paper is to look behind the veil of the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which has been initiated by the fourth King of Bhutan as an alternative to the traditional development concept of gross national product, by analyzing it as an expression of a particular view of leadership originated in the philosophical tradition of Mahayana Buddhism and exploring its relevance for leadership of sustainable development and sustainable (business) organizations.

Review of literature on GNH in a historical and current context, linking it to trends and concepts in sustainability and leadership. Complemented by author’s observations on regular visits to Bhutan since 2003.

The GNH leadership view consists of a set of principles: first, interrelatedness of economy, society and eco-systems; second, the economy, society and eco-systems can flourish if their needs are served; third, governance is the agent for serving these needs by the creation of societal happiness; and fourth, societal happiness should include the enhancement of subjective happiness and well-being of people. By tracing these principles to the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism, especially the Bodhisattva ideal, and comparing them to the principles driving sustainability, the paper argues that GNH leadership signifies an innovation in leadership for sustainability.

This paper examines how GNH leadership can be applied to organizational and business sustainability, and how it contributes to the emerging theory and practice of sustainability leadership.

The social relevance of the paper lies in the examination of how GNH leadership can be applied to organizational and business sustainability, and how it contributes to the emerging theory and practice of sustainability leadership.

The paper concludes that GNH leadership – as it corresponds to the principles driving sustainability – represents a new model for sustainability leadership.

This is a theoretical paper, which aims to consider the role of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in the development of “gross national happiness” (GNH) in Bhutan.

The paper initially examines the question of what is strategic capacity building and its importance for developing nations. It then considers the story of Bhutan where the idea of GNH forms the development philosophy and approach to attaining the long‐term visions and goals for the country. Different models and structures for SHRM in Bhutan are discussed in order to determine whether it can be applied to a nation effectively and, if so, whether it will enable the attainment of GNH and the performance desired by the government.

A link between SHRM and the achievement of Bhutan's 2020 vision is identified as, if Bhutan is to achieve its national capacity, it must identify the capabilities that it needs and then the strategies to support such developments. All four of Ulrich's HRM types will be required and this will need careful management, as there is a tendency to move towards one or other within an organization. Bhutan is going through a period of extensive change and the values will be changing. What is recognized here is that not only must the SHRM develop appropriate people management strategies, it must also acknowledge its crucial role in the recognition and maintenance of appropriate value sets.

The proposed framework is currently limited to a theoretical application for Bhutan because, it is argued, that an appropriate model of SHRM will support the desired attainments, but that to do so the specific values of Bhutan will need to be identified and integrated into policy development.

The role of SHRM in supporting or driving change is considered and a potential framework for SHRM in Bhutan is proposed. There is potential to apply these ideas more widely.

This paper identifies a role for SHRM in the attainment of GNH for Bhutan, which is important in helping Bhutan to achieve its national capability.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between sustainable development (SD) and spirituality. Bhutan, a country believing deeply in Buddhist spiritual values has created a model of Gross National Happiness (GNH) where it is believed that the holistic evolution of human being can take place with a balance of material as well as non-material aspects of spiritual, cultural, societal and environmental. The paper critically analyzes GNH to establish the role of spirituality in SD.

The paper analyses the GNH concept using literature review. Further, personal meetings with authorities in Bhutan and interaction with citizens of Bhutan used to gather primary data. A critical approach has been applied to understand the practical implication of the concept.

Good governance, sustainable socioeconomic development, cultural preservation and environmental conservation formed the four basic pillars of the GNH index, further elaborated into 9 domains and 33 clustered indicators. The concept has been commendable in giving new direction to the understanding of SD. Nevertheless, certain discrepancies create ambiguity and limitations around the validity of adoption of the concept in other countries.

A balanced and holistic, yet practical model of SD is necessitated. Bhutan has been a pioneer to suggest the different dimensions that can be acted upon to produce a more honest and sustainable path of being in concord with nature, community and other-related surroundings.

The paper provides insights to researchers and practitioners in understanding the basic essentials required for the SD agenda. The paper derives the learnings from the GNH model which can help in understanding the areas where the western three-pillar model of development needs more refinement. At the same time, the paper also helps in creating the insights for Bhutanese practitioners and policymakers about the areas where the GNH model still needs to be worked upon to improve its efficacy.

The paper proposes that SD can only be achieved through spirituality.

The distinction between discussing human capital (HC) and its actual measurement is the presence of indices and equations to substantiate the belief of measuring intangibles. The chapter makes a concise mention of research precedents, deriving leads for the foundation of HC. The chapter aims to provide clarity on the concept of HC measurement and bring to light the tools that can confer tangibility to intangibles. It argues that the measurement of HC is an achievable idea; furthering that a systematic review into the inter-disciplinary studies can offer viable solutions to the challenge of measuring intangibles. The chapter while discussing the contention makes a vivid mention of Bhutan’s gross national happiness (GNH), Happiness Seismograph, Cobb–Douglas model and others to make an impression on the minds of the reader.

The study of sustainability within universities is recognized as essential for debates and research; in the long term, the “sustainable university” concepts can contribute to sustainability from a larger perspective. This study aims to propose a conceptual model for evaluating the students’ sustainability considering their interactions with the university and the environment. The proposed model is titled Sunshine model. It is applied to students of the La Salle University, Peru.

The model combines academic performance, happiness and the ecological footprint to quantify university students’ sustainability. A structured questionnaire survey was elaborated and applied to get the raw data that feeds the three methods. The students’ average grades evaluate academic performance. Happiness is quantified by the happiness index method, and the ecological footprint is measured by the demand for food, paper, electricity, transport and built-up areas. Results are evaluated under both approaches, overall group performance and clusters.

The proposed model avoids misleading interpretations of a single indicator or discussions on sustainability that lack a conceptual model, bringing robustness in assessing students’ sustainability in universities. To have a low ecological footprint, the student needs to need up to 1 planet for their lifestyle, be considered happy with at least 0.8 (of 1) for happiness index, and have good academic performance with at least a grade of 7 (of 10) in their course. Regarding the case study, La Salle students show a high academic grade degree of 7, a high level for happiness index of 0.8 and low performance for ecological footprint by demanding 1.8 Earth planets, resulting in an “environmentally distracted” overall classification for students with 2019 data. From a cluster approach, 81% of evaluated students (n = 603) have low performance for ecological footprint, whereas 31% have low performance for indicators of recreational activities of happiness. Changing lifestyles and making more recreational activities available play crucial roles in achieving higher sustainability for the La Salle students.

The happiness assessment questionnaire can be subject to criticism, as it was created as a specific method for this type of audience based on existing questionnaires in the literature. Although it can be seen as an important approach for diagnoses, the proposed model does not consider the cause–effect aspect. The decision-maker must consider the sociocultural aspects before implementing plan actions.

University managers can better understand why university students have high or low sustainability performance and provide more effective actions toward higher levels of students’ sustainability.

The proposed model, Sunshine model, overcomes the single-criteria existing tools that access the sustainability of universities. Rather than focusing on university infrastructure, the proposed model focuses on the students and their relationship with the university.

In this study, the authors build on the current frameworks of happiness provided by the PERMA model, the World Happiness Report Index and the theoretical framework provided by the proponents of job-satisfaction model, motivation, employee engagement and commitment. The authors argue that, the existing theoretical framework in the management and the HR literature are just different aspects of a common goal – happiness. This position is consistent with the overall happiness projects championed by governments across the world, including the UK, Bhutan, several Scandinavian nations and essentially the United Arab Emirates. A chasm that currently exists in the literature is the availability of a universally acceptable definition for happiness and protocols for measuring happiness. The authors conclude that more research is required to keep pace with industry development relating to employee happiness initiatives.

Using quasi-literature review, the authors analysed selected studies on the theory of happiness to identify how each have treated the concept of happiness in organisations.

It is erroneous to promote national or international happiness initiatives without starting from the micro level – in this case, the institutions of society should start measuring happiness from the micro level to help understand what happiness actually means.

As an opinion piece, its recommendations need to be applied cautiously.

Till date, only a few studies have explored the concept of happiness from micro-organisational level.