The use of spreadsheets in organizations: Determinants and consequences

Spreadsheets have long been recognized as important tools for end-user computing. This research explores their use within business organizations. A survey was carried out to investigate the relationships among tasks, spreadsheet proficiency, usage, and satisfaction. The results suggested that the spreadsheet proficiency can have a greater impact on the tasks than the task can have on the spreadsheet proficiency. It was also found that spreadsheet users often do not use many of the commonly available spreadsheet features, and they do not appear inclined to use other software packages for their tasks, even if these packages might be more suitable. The proficiency of the spreadsheet users was not found to be related to the importance of the decisions being taken as a result of the spreadsheet analyses.