Assurance for service organisations: contextualising accountability and trust

Charika Channuntapipat

Managerial Auditing Journal, 2017, vol. 33, issue 4, 340-359

Abstract: Purpose - A number of organisations outsource their information systems and information technology infrastructure to a type of organisation called a “service organisation”. In the current business environment, where cyber risks are increasing, it is important to have a mechanism to ensure the credibility of these service organisations. This paper, therefore, aims to understand the contextualisation of accountability and trust of related organisations through the use of assurance engagements. Design/methodology/approach - This paper is conceptual in nature; however, textual data sources are used to support the theorisation of accountability and trust in the context of companies using service organisations. It uses publicly available assurance reports and related assurance standards for observing the accountability mechanism in practice, to understand the purpose of the assurance. Findings - Assurance statements for service organisations mainly provide reputation-based, not contract-based, accountability. Limited access to the assurance reports and limited responsibility of service auditors potentially decrease the degree of this reputation-based accountability. The findings reveal a potential accountability paradox regarding the role of assurance practice, as to whether it serves as a managerial tool to build trust or as an accountability mechanism for stakeholders. Originality/value - This paper extends the understanding of accountability and trust in the context of this unconventional form of organisational relationship. It urges more transparency in terms of the accessibility of assurance reports to provide information to wider stakeholders. The findings add to the latent literature on organisational trust and voluntary assurance practice.

Keywords: Accountability; Trust; Service organization; Voluntary assurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:majpps:maj-06-2017-1588

DOI: 10.1108/MAJ-06-2017-1588

Access Statistics for this article

Managerial Auditing Journal is currently edited by Professor Jie Zhou

More articles in Managerial Auditing Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().