In search of Companies Eudaimonia

This week Finance and Happiness (eudaimonia – a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous) met again in the PhD study of Valentina Minutiello who surprised the audience with the syllogism: “if humang beings, accordinding to Aristotele, want and need to achieve eudaimonia and companies are made by and for human beings, then the companies need to achieve eudaimonia”.
For the faithful readers of www.thehappycfo.com this is a scientific confirmation that companies have to go beyond the pure pursuit of profit but combining it with ethical values, virtues and happiness (ESG).
Finance associates through Accounting and its related company communication documents and reports have the great opportunity to share this wider purpose with the community. Gone are the days of tedious back office work, Finance should communicate about how happy its stakeholders are and how much happiness the company generate in Society. It was nice to see how Academia is doing a lot of reasearch on the qualitative aspects of Integrated Reporting with the aim to propose companies tools to make it feasible. Thanks to professors Patrizia Tettamanzi and ISABEL MARÍA GARCIA SANCHEZ for letting me join this inspiring PhD discussion at LIUC – Università Carlo Cattaneo #thehappycfo