Planning assurance services

Our purpose is to investigate the strategies an auditor will use to assess risk when planning for the provision of a type of assurance service. The as surance service that we model is the delivery of information from the audit or to an investor. Our primary objective is to explore the extent to which risk assessment strategies that are employed in the provision of traditiona l auditing services carry over to the assurance service that we model. We f ind that unlike audit services where conservatism can be the cure for the " auditor's curse," or a protection against legal liability, in assurance ser vices that are user-driven there is a lesser role for conservatism as a uni versal property of the information system. We also find that auditors who s upply assurance services (of the variety we model) will not compromise thei r reputation as high-quality auditors because assurance services will be pr ovided at a high level of quality for economic reasons, even without regula tor restrictions.