Mengjiao "Nancy" Du, assistant professor of accounting in Cal Poly Pomona's College of Business Administration, has had her latest research accepted for publication in Accounting, Organizations and Society, one of the accounting field's most influential academic journals.
The paper, “Investor Reaction to the Disclosure of Potential Financial Impact of Sustainability: The Moderating Role of Investor Type,” was co-authored with Bernard Wong-On-Wing and is set to appear in Volume 117 of the journal in 2026. Accounting, Organizations and Society is included on the Financial Times' FT50 list of top research journals and carries an A* rating on the Australian Business Deans Council journal quality list, placing it among the most selective outlets in the discipline.
The study looks at how investors respond when companies disclose the potential financial impact of their sustainability efforts. Du and Wong-On-Wing found that the effect of such disclosures depends on both a company's financial standing and an investor's own views on sustainability. Investors who prioritize stakeholder value were largely unmoved by the disclosures regardless of a company's finances, while investors who view sustainability spending as a cost showed greater interest in investing when the disclosures accompanied strong financial performance, but not when performance was weak. The researchers also found that the disclosures shifted investors' beliefs differently depending on what they thought about sustainability going in.
The findings carry practical weight for companies navigating integrated reporting and for standard setters working to connect sustainability disclosures to financial performance. The research also adds to a growing body of work on how non-financial information and investor characteristics shape investment decisions.
Du joined Cal Poly Pomona in 2018 after earning her Ph.D. in accounting from Washington State University. She previously worked in auditing and enterprise risk management at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu China. Her research centers on sustainability reporting, investor judgment, and decision-making and cross-cultural differences, using experimental methods to explore how information disclosures shape financial decisions. Her work has also appeared in Behavioral Research in Accounting and has been presented at American Accounting Association meetings.
Congratulations to Assistant Professor Du on this milestone, which reflects years of dedicated research and represents a significant achievement for the College of Business Administration.