arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

When protecting children hits the bottom line: Evidence from SDG2000 firms

Wiebke Szymczak

Scandinavian Journal of Management2026https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2025.101447article
AJG 2ABDC B
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Intergenerational justice is a core principle of sustainability, yet empirical metrics on the impact of business on future generations remain scarce. Moreover, evidence suggests that different ESG scores capture distinct dimensions of corporate responsibility, highlighting the need for more targeted assessments. This study examines the relationship between corporate engagement with children’s rights and financial performance using a dataset of 1672 firm-year observations, combining a novel children’s rights benchmark with Refinitiv’s financial and sustainability metrics. Results indicate a negative association between marketplace ratings, assessing firms’ child welfare considerations in marketing, and accounting-based profitability, even when controlling for ESG subscores. However, no similar relationship emerges in stock market performance. These findings highlight potential tensions between corporate responsibility and short-term financial outcomes, emphasizing the role of regulatory frameworks and stakeholder engagement in balancing financial and social objectives. • We introduce a novel dataset to measure corporate compliance with children’s rights. • We find a negative link between child-friendly marketplace behavior and profitability. • This link is robust to the inclusion of general ESG measures. • There is significant between-sector variance for accounting but not market measures.

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2025.101447

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{wiebke2026,
  title        = {{When protecting children hits the bottom line: Evidence from SDG2000 firms}},
  author       = {Wiebke Szymczak},
  journal      = {Scandinavian Journal of Management},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2025.101447},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

When protecting children hits the bottom line: Evidence from SDG2000 firms

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.