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Emojis act as non-verbal cues to disambiguate and communicate affect and are increasingly used in online corporate disclosures. Emotion work, a concept founded in social psychology, suggests that individuals adjust their behavior as emotions are evoked or suppressed. Despite the growing evidence that emojis may influence judgments and decisions due to their deliberate expression of context and affect, the accounting research community has yet to investigate emojis' impact. We experimentally explore whether emojis can soften nonprofessional investors' perceptions of bad news or enhance perceptions of good news. We find that emojis modestly suppress participants' positive emotions on positive news, influencing their investment-related judgments and decision-making. Subsequent data collection fails to replicate the initial findings in a less experienced participant pool, suggesting that investing experience may play a role. Our study enhances our understanding of the unintended consequences of emojis and introduces a sociology-based principle into the accounting literature. Data Availability: Please contact authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5915.2007.00167.x Byline: Robin Pennington (1 [dagger]), Brad Tuttle (2) Keywords: Computerized Process Tracing; Decision Strategy; IT Governance; Information Overload; Information Processing; Policy Capturing; Risk Judgments; and Software Project Risk Abstract: ABSTRACT Managers are responsible for providing effective information technology governance of the software development process. Ineffective governance leads to serious resource misallocations and negative consequences concerning Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. In order for managers to make informed decisions about software development projects, they often need more information than is available through normal information channels, that is, they need an in-depth review of the at-risk project. Such in-depth reviews, however, are costly. Hence, accurate identification of at-risk projects for in-depth review is critical to management's ability to govern. This research considers how two factors, information load and time pressure, affect the quality of the project-selection process. We examine quality by observing the decision strategies involved and then relating these strategies to subsequent decision making. An experiment was conducted with experienced information systems auditors using a combination of policy-capturing and computerized process-tracing techniques. The participants in our study cope with information overload by accelerating their decision-making process and adopting noncompensatory decision processes. Contrary to prior research, our process-tracing analysis suggests that participants rarely filter information, thus implying that decision makers are unable to process all the information. Coping by resorting to noncompensatory strategies did not decrease decision quality unless combined with accelerated information processing. Participants also increase their weight on the software project risk factors that they repeatedly access and that they view for longer periods of time. The theoretical contributions and practical implications regarding what actions managers can take to reduce the negative impact of information overload are discussed. Author Affiliation: (1)North Carolina State University, Department of Accounting, Campus Box 8113, Raleigh, NC 27695-8113, e-mail:robin_pennington@ncsu.edu (2)University of South Carolina, School of Accounting, Moore School of Business, Columbia, SC 29208, e-mail:tuttle@sc.edu Article History: [Received: March 2006. Accepted: June 2007.] Article note: ([dagger]) Corresponding author.

Biased evaluation of evidence exists when an auditor either over-emphasizes evidence that supports management assertions or over-emphasizes evidence against management assertions. This study examines if an auditor’s advocacy attitudes lead to bias in information search for audit evidence. We measure the range of advocacy attitudes of individual auditors and hypothesize that auditors at either end of the advocacy spectrum may impede the objectivity of evidence gathered. Results from 60 Big 4 auditors indicate that advocacy attitudes affect both initial judgments and consequent search strategies of auditors. When initial judgments are client-favorable, all auditors exhibit search strategies focused on finding evidence to take a more conservative position; however, when initial judgments represent an unfavorable client position, auditors with lower advocacy attitudes exhibit a stronger tendency to search for additional evidence against a client-favorable position, consistent with a confirmation bias. Conversely, auditors with more neutral attitudes plan a more objective search effectively mitigating the bias. Aggregate findings establish an important link between bias and information search that may manifest itself in auditor training procedures and be of interest to auditing regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Author(s): Sattva S Neelapu [1, 5]; Larry W Kwak (corresponding author) [1, 5]; Carol B Kobrin [2]; Craig W Reynolds [3]; John E Janik [1]; Kieron Dunleavy [1]; Therese White [...]

A cancer vaccine against a tumor-specific antigen in lymphoma patients successfully cleared all malignant cells in the blood of 8 out of 11 patients. The patients also had evidence of tumor-specific CD8+ and CD4+ cells in their blood. They remained in remission following the treatment.

In this study, we investigate the negative impact of a cybersecurity breach on a bystander (i.e., non-breached) firm in the same industry, referred to as investment contagion effects, and whether voluntary cybersecurity disclosures mitigate these effects. Using an experiment with nonprofessional investors, we provide strong evidence of investment contagion effects. However, we also find a portion of investor participants perceive the breach as positive news for the bystander firm, a phenomenon known as competition effects. Our evidence suggests contagion effects are dominant over competition effects, and cybersecurity disclosures provided prior to the breach announcement attenuate contagion effects. Additionally, we find cybersecurity disclosures provided subsequent to the breach announcement can reduce the magnitude of investment contagion effects. Our study informs standard setters and firms as we find some evidence that voluntary disclosures are effective in lessening investment contagion effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chief executive officers (CEOs) are increasingly using social media to disclose information and communicate with investors. Although findings from archival research show some benefits to social media use, little is known about how the social nature of this disclosure channel affects individual investors. Accordingly, we develop a mediation model based on social capital theory that predicts social media disclosure channels lead investors to perceive enhanced feelings of connectedness (i.e., social capital) with the CEO, resulting in more positive judgments of the CEO. Specifically, our model predicts CEO disclosures via Twitter, versus web-based disclosures, lead to enhanced perceptions of social capital, which in turn positively impact investor recommendations for CEO compensation. Using an experiment with individual investors, our results provide robust support for our theoretical mediation model. Our findings enhance our understanding of how CEOs' social media use influences individual investors and have implications for standard setters, investors, and firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lymphomas express a tumor-specific antigen which can be targeted by cancer vaccination. We evaluated the ability of a new idiotype protein vaccine formulation to eradicate residual t(14;18)+ lymphoma cells in 20 patients in a homogeneous, chemotherapy-induced first clinical complete remission. All 11 patients with detectable translocations in their primary tumors had cells from the malignant clone detectable in their blood by PCR both at diagnosis and after chemotherapy, despite being in complete remission. However, 8 of 11 patients converted to lacking cells in their blood from the malignant clone detectable by PCR after vaccination and sustained their molecular remissions. Tumor-specific cytotoxic CD8[sup +] and CD4[sup +] T cells were uniformly found (19 of 20 patients), whereas antibodies were detected, but apparently were not required for molecular remission. Vaccination was thus associated with clearance of residual tumor cells from blood and long-term disease-free survival. The demonstration of molecular remissions, analysis of cytotoxic T lymphocytes against autologous tumor targets, and addition of granulocyte-monocyte colony-stimulating factor to the vaccine formulation provide principles relevant to the design of future clinical trials of other cancer vaccines administered in a minimal residual disease setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]