Fei Du

Fei Du is an associate professor of accountancy in Gies College of Business. Before she joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017, she taught at the University of Hong Kong from 2011-2017. Fei is interested in archival managerial accounting research. Her research focuses on the role of social preferences and social equity in managerial decision making. She enjoys working with data, such as extracting unstructured data, putting such data into order, identifying useful variables, and building databases for organizational decision-making purposes. Fei runs field interviews with practitioners to guide her empirical efforts. Her research has appeared in top academic journals, including The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, Contemporary Accounting Research, Academy of Management Journal, and Journal of Management Accounting Research. She won the American Accounting Association’s Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature Award in 2016 and its Impact on Management Accounting Practice Award in 2018.

Research Interests

Fei is interested in studying the interactive effect of social preferences and control systems on employees’ behavior and organizational outcomes. Fei's research has examined how social preferences affect subjective performance evaluation, information sharing, and the formation of social ties. To study these research questions, Fei uses a variety of research methods and complements the archival empirical analysis with fieldwork. Fei focuses on the following research topics: (1) Subjective performance evaluation, for example, how supervisors' subjective adjustments vary with the characteristics of subordinates being evaluated and with the attributes of performance measures being adopted; (2) Information sharing, for example, how analysts and fund managers benefit from talking with firm managers during their corporate site visits, and how independent directors become less subject to CEO influence when the information sharing in boardrooms is more sufficient. (3) Political ties, for example, how political ties affect companies' capability building, bribery activities, and risk-taking behaviour.

Educational Background

• Ph.D., Accounting, University of Southern California, 2011
• B.A., Accounting, Beijing Technology and Business University, 2003

Positions Held

• Associate Professor of Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 to present
• Assistant Professor of Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017-2020
• Assistant Professor of Accountancy, University of Hong Kong, 2011-2017

Honors and Awards

• Arthur Anderson Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Accountancy, 2019 to present
• R.C. Evans Data Analytics Fellow, University of Illinois-Deloitte Foundation Center for Business Analytics, 2018-2020
• Raymond A. Hoffman Faculty Excellence Award, Department of Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018-2019
• Impact on Management Accounting Practice Award, Management Accounting Section, American Accounting Association, 2018
• List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017, 2018

Recent Publications

• Cheng, Q., Du, F., Wang, X., & Wang, Y. (2019). Do Corporate Site Visits Impact Stock Prices. Contemporary Accounting Research, 36 (1), 359-388.
• Wang, D., Du, F., & Marquis, C. (2019). Defending Mao's Dream: How Politicians' Ideological Imprinting Affects Firms' Political Appointment in China. Academy of Management Journal, 62 (4), 1111-1136.
• Xu, D., Zhou, K., & Du, F. (2019). Deviant versus Aspirational Risk Taking: The Effects of Performance Feedback on Bribery Expenditure and R&D Intensity. Academy of Management Journal, 62 (4), 1226-1251.
• Dai, N., Du, F., Tang, G., & Young, M. (2018). Seeking Legitimacy through quality CSR Reporting: Evidence from China. Journal of Management Accounting Research, 30 (1), 1-29.