The importance of subjective well-being in building competitiveness
Abstract
By conceptualizing competitiveness as “the process through which, based on a set of resources and capabilities that are a source of competitive advantages, a territory can achieve previously established objectives of well-being and sustainable development”, the authors reflect on the relationship between competitiveness and well-being. This led them to consider that well-being should address not only objective well-being (state of affairs) but also subjective well-being (reflection of that state on the level of satisfaction), as well as the fact that one of the most substantial contributions from economic theory to competitiveness construction processes is to research what elements from objective economic well-being have the greatest impact on the subjective well-being or happiness of the population. Research papers that present findings along these lines are introduced, one of which demonstrates that it is possible to find differences in valuations regarding the incidence of different aspects of objective well-being on subjective well-being when different regions within a determined territory are considered. These results are important to the definition of public policy and firm strategies in the process of constructive competitiveness.
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