Can firms' anti-slavery and human rights' commitments in supply chains enhance financial performance?

Modern slavery remains a significant societal challenge within operations and supply chain management (OSCM). Prior research has largely concentrated on compliance, disclosure, and institutional pressures, often revealing that corporate responses are symbolic and fragmented. To address this gap, the purpose of this study is to investigate how anti-slavery and human rights commitments influence financial performance, and to examine how operations and supply chain management (OSCM) capabilities—particularly capacity slack and geographical scope—moderate this relationship. Using longitudinal data from 3,633 firm year observations across 354 publicly listed U.S. firms (2002–2020), sourced from Refinitiv, CRSP, Compustat–Global, and BoardEx, we analyze the impact of anti-slavery and human rights commitments on financial performance. Grounded in the Social Resource-Based View (SRBV), the study finds that stronger commitments are associated with a 5.8% increase in annual stock returns, particularly in the service sector. Furthermore, geographical scope positively moderates this relationship, while capacity slack has a negative effect. These findings remain robust through i) analyses with dynamic panel system GMM and instrumental variable models to address further endogeneity issues; ii) stress tests on firm size and stickiness of commitments on future stock returns; iii) sensitivity analysis for moderations; iv) alternative performance measures; and v) controlling for workforce engagement and corporate governance.