IT governance: Objectives and assurances in internet banking Shi-Ming Huang a , Wei-Cheng Shen a , David C. Yen b, ⁎, Ling-Yi Chou a a Department of Accounting and Information Technology, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan b Department of Decision Sciences/MIS, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, United States abstract article info Keywords: Trust IT governance Assurance internet banking COBIT This paper develops and tests a new factor of the trust model in electronic commerce; namely, internet banking. Internal control of internet banking is very consistent with high levels of trust factors such as security, privacy, and other risk issues. However, this type of association has not yet been widely recognized as a trusted model from the consumer's electronic commerce point of view. This study attempts to create new factors in IT governance and the COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies) assurance seal. The empirical results of this experiment show that customer familiarity with IT governance and the COBIT assurance seal has impacted customers' trust in internet banking. Moreover, the results also show that perceived internet banking quality and reputation impact customers' trust in internet banking. Given the results of this study, we propose future research aimed at developing a COBIT assurance web seal of internal control, applicable to information technology based on IT governance. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Previous studies of e-commerce have referred to trust as one of the major obstacles in preventing growth and adoption (Gefen, Karahanna, & Straub, 2003). However, the relationship between e-commerce and consumer trust has not yet been fully analyzed with respect to full adoption of e-commerce technology. Customers are reluctant to adopt internet banking because of the associated security (Cheng, Lam, & Yeung, 2006) and privacy concerns and other trust-related issues (Lee & Turban, 2001; Pavlou, Liang, & Xue, 2007; Thomas, Midha, & Nemati, 2007). There is no doubt that security, privacy, and trust are all complex issues with multidimensional factors; many of which transcend the traditional physical marketplace, moving into the electronic market- place. Moreover, while each internet bank has a different reputation and provides varying service quality, the reputation of the bank is the most important factor in choosing an internet banking service (Tan & Teo, 2000) and internet banking service quality has strong impacts on customer satisfaction (Bauer, Hammerschmidt, & Falk, 2005 ; Jun & Cai, 2001). Internet banking can be employed to reduce system-related uncertainty by utilizing encrypted transactions, firewalls, authentication mechanisms, and privacy seals and disclosures (Pavlou, 2003) while offering other structural assurances (Kim & Prabhakar, 2002; Yousafzai, Pallister, & Foxall, 2005). In addition, the management of IT (information technology) focuses on routine tasks which are performed daily, such as effective and efficient control, allocation, and management of various IT service operations. To improve IT management and control, information technology governance (IT governance) concentrates on the regulation of IT to meet the present and future demands of businesses and customers (Peterson, 2004). Internet banking is one type of IT service that offers banking services in the IT domain to internet customers. The aforementioned research on consumer trust specifically identifies the privacy, security, and risk factors of distrust of internet banking as technologically-based concerns (Rajagopalan & Ashutosh, 2005). Fur- thermore, perceived reputation and quality are key factors to attracting customers to adopt e-commerce technology when customers lack prior experiences (McKnight, Choudhur, & Kacmar, 2002). This study expands upon previous research by integrating the findings of studies related to trust and building upon the constructs of “trusting intention” and “trusting beliefs” proposed by McKnight et al. (2002). The primary focus of this study is to create internal IT management solutions and address trust issues. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to consider the question of how IT governance affects factors such as trusting beliefs and trusting intention, and how perceived reputation and quality affect trusting beliefs and trusting intention factors. This study employs the COBIT framework to investigate the impact of IT governance on the internal IT process, and also examines IT resource dimensions, including applications, information, infrastructure, and people from the COBIT framework, as useful tools for improving consumer trust. 2. Literature review The last several decades have witnessed the development of multiple frameworks that can support the implementation of IT governance. The COBIT framework is based upon using various techniques to focus on the improvement of the process flow within an organization and the Advances in Accounting, incorporating Advances in International Accounting 27 (2011) 406–414 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 1 513 529 4827; fax: + 1 513 529 9689. E-mail addresses: smhuang@mis.ccu.edu.tw (S.-M. Huang), iceman.shen@gmail.com (W.-C. Shen), yendc@muohio.edu (D.C. Yen), choulinyi@gmail.com (L.-Y. Chou). 0882-6110/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.adiac.2011.08.001 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Advances in Accounting, incorporating Advances in International Accounting journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/adiac