While prior research suggests that the market responds negatively to data breach disclosures, how nonprofessional investors assess factors surrounding these disclosures has only been assessed anecdotally. We examine whether investor judgments are influenced by whether a breached company is the first to disclose a data breach and whether a significant amount of time has lapsed between the breach and disclosure. We find evidence that investors respond to a company originating disclosure with lower investment judgments than if disclosure comes from an external source, without consistent regard to the timing of disclosure. We also find that investors make the least favorable investment judgments when the breached company initiates the data breach disclosure and when there is a significant delay between the data breach and initial public disclosure. Our study provides a greater understanding of one consequence of data breaches, that is, how timing and disclosure initiative influence nonprofessional investors' judgments. JEL Classifications: G41; M41.

ChatGPT, a language-learning model chatbot, has garnered considerable attention for its ability to respond to users’ questions. Using data from 14 countries and 186 institutions, we compare ChatGPT and student performance for 28,085 questions from accounting assessments and textbook test banks. As of January 2023, ChatGPT provides correct answers for 56.5 percent of questions and partially correct answers for an additional 9.4 percent of questions. When considering point values for questions, students significantly outperform ChatGPT with a 76.7 percent average on assessments compared to 47.5 percent for ChatGPT if no partial credit is awarded and 56.5 percent if partial credit is awarded. Still, ChatGPT performs better than the student average for 15.8 percent of assessments when we include partial credit. We provide evidence of how ChatGPT performs on different question types, accounting topics, class levels, open/closed assessments, and test bank questions. We also discuss implications for accounting education and research.

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Background: Several nervous and nerve-related biomarkers have been detected in colorectal cancer (CRC) and can contribute to the progression of CRC. However, the role of leucine-rich repeat neuronal 4 (LRRN4), a recently identified neurogenic marker, in CRC remains unclear. Methods: We examined the expression and the clinical outcomes of LRRN4 in CRC from TCGA-COREAD mRNA-sequencing datasets and immunohistochemistry on the Chinese cohort. Furthermore, the colony formation, flow cytometry, wound healing assay and mouse xenograft models were used to investigate the biological significance of LRRN4 in CRC cell lines with LRRN4 knockdown or overexpression in vitro and in vivo. In addition, weighted co-expression network analysis and DAVID were used to explore the potential molecular mechanism. Results: We provide the first evidence that LRRN4 expression, at both the protein and mRNA level, was remarkable high in CRC compared to controls and positively correlated with the clinical outcome of CRC patients. Specifically, LRRN4 was an independent prognostic factor for progression-free survival and overall survival in CRC patients. Further functional experiments showed that LRRN4 promoted cell proliferation, cell DNA synthesis and cell migration and inhibited apoptosis. Knockdown of LRRN4 can correspondingly decrease these effects in vitro and can significantly suppress the growth of xenografts. Several biological functions and signaling pathways were regulated by LRRN4, including proteoglycans in cancer, glutamatergic synapse, Ras, MAPK and PI3K.Conclusions: Our results suggest that LRRN4 could be a biological and molecular determinant to stratify CRC patients into distinct risk categories, and mechanistically, this is likely attributable to LRRN4 in regulating several malignant phenotypes of neoplastic cells via cancer-related pathways.

Prior literature has documented the importance of knowledge sharing to accounting and auditing, however, researchers have made little progress in understanding knowledge sharing behavior in an accounting setting. This study aims to understand how formal communication among auditors affects knowledge sharing behavior. Specifically, this study investigates the impact of the frequency and source of instructional messages on knowledge sharing behavior in an auditing setting. The results of this study indicate that an in-group member is more effective in promoting knowledge sharing behavior. When motivating knowledge sharing behavior, an out-group member should avoid sending a high frequency of knowledge sharing messages. This study provides guidelines for altering communication styles in order to encourage knowledge sharing. The findings of this study also suggest that more communication messages are not always better. Thus, these findings can help organizations understand the reasons why employees are reluctant to share their knowledge.