Spreadsheet Literature

INDEX

/ ARTICLE / SUMMARY / RATING
4 Peer journal
3 W/paper
2 Grey lit
1 Other / FOCUS
A/c
IT
HR
Purch.
Gen. / THEORY / MODE
BPO SS Gen
Mixed
SS1 / Taylor, M, Moynihan, E and Wood-Harper, A. (1998). End-user computing and information systems methodologies, Information Systems Journal 8, (1998), p. 85-96 / This paper examines the relationship between information systems methodologies and the end-user computing environment. In particular, the potential benefits and disadvantages of the use of information systems methodologies for end-user computing, and strategies by which such usage can be accomplished.
Keywords: End-user computing, information systems methodology. / 4 / A / Funct. / BPO
SSC
MA2 / Leon, L, Dolphy, M and Kalbers, L. (2010). Beyond Regulatory Compliance for Spreadsheet Controls: A Tutorial to Assist Practitioners and a Call for Research, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 27 (8) p 541-560 / This tutorial presents an analysis of the prior work on error prevention and detection in spreadsheets as it relates to SOX and IT governance frameworks more generally. It attempts to reconcile requirements for SOX with IT spreadsheet research. It offers a series of options for controlling the spreadsheet development process.
Keywords: Spreadsheet errors, internal controls, IT governance, regulatory compliance
MA3 / Panko, R and Halverson, R. (1996). Spreadsheets on Trial: A Survey of Research on Spreadsheet risks. 29th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1996 / This paper presents a framework for risks in spreadsheeting and organises selected research findings in terms of this framework. This draws on evidence from experiments, field audits, and surveys of end users and organisations that early concerns of the potential dangers of end user spreadsheet development were well founded.
MA4 / Chan, Y and Storey, V (1996). The use of spreadsheets in organisations: Determinants and consequences. Information & Management 31 (1996) p 119-134 / This paper explores spreadsheet use within organisations, drawing on results from a survey carried out to investigate the relationship among tasks, spreadsheet proficiency, usage, and satisfaction.
Keywords: End-user computing; spreadsheets; Software packages.
MA5 / Erwig, M, Abraham, R, Cooperstein, I and Kollmansberger, S. (2005). Automatic Generation and Maintenance of Correct Spreadsheets. ICSE, May 2005. / This paper proposes a system that prevents errors in spreadsheets by restricting spreadsheet updates to only those that are logically and technically correct. The system is based on the concept of templates that describe the principal structure of the initial spreadsheet and all of its future versions.
Keywords: Spreadsheets, Template, Program generation, Error prevention, Type system, End-user software engineering.
MA6 / Rothermel, G, Burnett, M, Li, L, Dupius, C and Sheretov, A. (2001). A Methodology for Testing Spreadsheets. Transaction on Software Engineering and Methodology. 10 (1), January 2001 P 110-147 / The article attempts to provide some of the benefits of formal testing methodology to the creators of spreadsheets. This article presents a testing methodology that adapts data flow adequacy criteria and coverage monitoring to the task of testing spreadsheets.
Keywords: Software testing, spreadsheets.
MA7 / Brown, P and Gould, J. (1987). An Experimental Study of People Creating Spreadsheets. Transactions on Office Information Systems, 5 (3) July 1987, P 258-272 / This study saw nine experienced users of electronic spreadsheets each creating three spreadsheets. It showed that 44 percent of the spreadsheets contained user generated errors, despite their initial confidence. The study also showed that people did not spend a lot of time planning before launching a spreadsheet creating episode, and spend 21% of their time pausing before doing so.
Keywords: Programming errors, spreadsheets.
MA8 / Hendry, D and Green T (1994)Creating, comprehending and explaining spreadsheets: a cognitive interpretation of what discretionary users think of the spreadsheet model. Journal of Human and Computer Studies, 40, P 1033-1065. / This paper summarises transcripts of interviews from users of spreadsheets when asked to explain how their spreadsheets worked. The interviews reveal key strengths and weaknesses of the spreadsheet model. It shows how in previous literature has emphasised strengths of spreadsheets and tended to overlook weaknesses.
Powell, S, Baker, K, and Lawson, B (2008) A critical review of the literature on spreadsheet errors. Decision Support Systems 46 (2008) P 128-138 / This paper summarizes and critiques the research literature on spreadsheet errors from the viewpoint of a manager who wishes to improve operational spreadsheet quality. It also offers suggestions for future research directions that can improve the state of knowledge about spreadsheet errors and mitigate spreadsheet risks.
Pemberton, J and Robson, A. (2000) Spreadsheets in business. Industrial Management and Data Systems 100 (2000) P 379-388 / This paper aims to assess the impact of spreadsheets on today’s modern business by presenting research based on a questionnaire survey of 227 respondents drawn from a range of business disciplines, and at various levels within their organisations.
Baskarada, S (2010) How Spreadsheet Applications Affect Information Quality. Journal of Computer Information Systems (Spring 2011) P 77-84 / This paper aims to bridge the gap in literature regarding the lack of research into the impact of spreadsheets on organisational information quality. It identifies key factors – inherent to spreadsheet applications as well as related to their use – which may have significant negative effects on information quality in organisations.
Keywords: data quality, information quality, spreadsheet application, ethnography.
Petti R, Cannon H. An Innovative Spreadsheet Authoring Environment. Journal Of Internet Banking & Commerce [serial online]. August 2008;13(2):1-11. / This paper compares design criteria against the new ModelSheet authoring environment, which is based on a new symbiosis of visual layout and program structures. ModelSheet retains the key strengths of spreadsheets - supporting decentralized innovation by domain experts who may not be programmers - while it improves model reliability, model expressiveness, team collaboration, and modeler productivity.
Reason T. Building Better Budgets. Cfo [serial online]. December 2000;16(14):91. / This article discusses issues companies have with Excel spreadsheets, and how companies are turning to budgeting and planning software packages to reduce time and effort spent on budgeting.
Leahy T. Can the Budgeting Competency Gap Be Narrowed?.Business Finance [serial online]. February 2006;12(2):39-43. / This article presents results from a survey showing the real value of leading practices in budgeting, planning and forecasting. It shows a gap between practices of top flight business and average enterprises.
Goodwin B. Software can ease the pain and cut the cost of compliance, says Butler. Computer Weekly [serial online]. March 15, 2005;:16. / This article discusses how suppliers are beginning to offer more sophisticated tools that will make compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley easier in the future, noting how before business relied on simple software tools such as spreadsheets to analyse compliance.

Galleta, D, Hartzel, K, Johnson, S, Joseph, J and Rustagi, S. (1996) Spreadsheet presentation and error detection: an experimental study. 29th International Conference on System Sciences (1996).

/ This paper reports on a study to understand if error detection was aided by presentation format. Subjects found on average only 50% of errors across all presentation formats. This paper suggests that practitioners should be aware of the difficulties in finding even simple errors, especially on-screen, and should develop training programs to facilitate spreadsheet auditor’s performance.
Rao M, Mandal P. Linking the Impact of IT Investments to Productivity and Profitability. International Journal Of Enterprise Information Systems [serial online]. April 2011;7(2):34-49. Available from: EconLit, Ipswich, MA. Accessed February 17, 2012. / This paper describes a measurement model, known as the PPP model (Profitability = Productivity + Price Recovery) that can fill the gap and show a link between IT investments, productivity and profitability.
Douglas Howcroft, (2006) "Spreadsheets and the financial planning process: a case study of resistance to change", Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Vol. 2 Iss: 3, pp.248 – 280 (Still need access to hard copy) / The purpose of this paper is to identify and explain the barriers that prevented the case study organisation, a UK manufacturing and R&D subsidiary of a European transnational company, from improving its spreadsheet-based financial planning process.
Surendranath R. Jory, Jacob Peng, Caroline O. Ford, (2010) "The wealth effects of investing in information technology: The case of Sarbanes-Oxley section 404 compliance", Review of Accounting and Finance, Vol. 9 Iss: 3, pp.285 – 305(Still need access to hard copy) / This paper aims to examine investor reaction to companies' announcements of new information technology (IT) or improved existing IT to satisfy requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
Edwarsds, J, Finlay, P and Wilson, J. (2000) The role of OR specialists in ‘do it yourself’ spreadsheet development. European Journal of Operational Research 127 (2000) P 14-27. / This paper discusses how the implementation of ‘Do it yourself spreadsheets’ have become widespread in recent years, although that this has led to concerns that many of the systems may not be fit for purpose. A set of 20 guidelines are presented to help the OR specialist guide the DIYer to ‘scope’ any proposed spreadsheet.
Miller, R. (2005) Only a matter of time before the spreadsheets hit the fan. The Telegraph, 30 June 2005. / This article reports on how inaccurate financial information is widespread and is putting businesses at risk.
Business & Media: Media: THE NETWORKER: Spreadsheets serve as weapons of mass cost destruction / This article talks of how spreadsheets have made it so easy to calculate ‘what-if’ scenarios that they have created a culture where companies are constantly second guessing themselves and over planning.
Tobias, E. (2000) My biggest mistake: I should have looked, and listened to people. The Independent, September 13 2000. / This article discusses the thoughts of an IT manager that presented to his board plans to continue using older mainframe style network as opposed to spreadsheets, even though it seems many businesses were going that way.

Panko, R. (1998) What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors.Journal of End User Computing, Special Issue on Scaling Up End User Development. Volume 10, No 2, Spring 1998 P 15-21.

/ This paper discusses how the considering errors are usually found in a few percent of all cells on spreadsheets, for a large organisation the question is not whether they exist, but how many there are. Also how in programming, there are strict development disciplines whereas spreadsheet creation tends to be more informal.

Croll, G. (2005) The Importance and Criticality of Spreadsheets in the City of London. European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group.

/ This article brings together experiences of a number of senior practitioners who have spent much of their careers working with large spreadsheets that have been and continue to be used to support major financial transactions and manage large institutions in the City of London. It is suggested that the City is presently exposed to significant reputational risk through the uncontrolled use of critical spreadsheets in the financial markets and elsewhere.

Nardi, B and Miller, J. (1990) The spreadsheet interface: A basis for end-user programming. Human Computer Interaction, Spring 1990.

/ This paper describes the properties of the spreadsheet interface and the ways in which spreadsheets support users with little or no formal training in programming. It analyses the spreadsheet formula language through which users express mathematical relations and the tabular grid which permits users to view, structure and display data.

Ballou, D, Pazer, H, Belardo, S and Klein, B. (1987) Implication of Data Quality for Spreadsheet Analysis.

/ This paper examines the impact of deficiencies in data quality on the results generated for spreadsheet applications. The purpose is to describe a framework which can be systematically used to determine the relative importance of potential errors in operational and judgemental data.

McGill, T and Klobas, J (2005) The role of spreadsheet knowledge in user-developed application success. Decision Support Systems 39 (2005) P 355-369

/ This paper reports on a study to investigate the role of spreadsheet knowledge in the successful use of spreadsheet applications. It considers both the spreadsheet knowledge of the user developer and the spreadsheet knowledge of the user and tests a model of the effect of spreadsheet knowledge on the success of a user-developed spreadsheet application.

Teo, T.S.H and Eng Lee-Patridge, J (2001) Effects of error factors and prior incremental practice on spreadsheet error detection: an experimental study. Omega 29 (2001) P 445-456

/ This paper reports on an experiment conducted to examine the rate of detection of both quantitative and qualitative errors in two domain-free spreadsheets. A detailed list and explanation of the types of common spreadsheet errors are presented.

Howe, H and Simkin, M (2006) Factors Affecting the Ability to Detect Spreadsheet Errors.Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education. 4 (1) January 2006.

/ This article examines the subject of spreadsheet error detection in detail and describes an experiment designed to identify those factors influencing the error-detection capabilities of a sample of spreadsheet users.

Powell, S, Baker, K and Lawson, B (2009) Impact of errors in operational spreadsheets. Decision Support Systems 47 (2009) P 126-132

/ This study estimates the quantitative impacts of errors in 25 operational spreadsheets from five different organisations. 381 potential errors were discovered, 117 were confirmed as errors. The largest error was $100 million.
Banks D., Monday A. “Interpretation As A Factor In Understanding Flawed Spreadsheets”. Proceedings of EuSpRIG 2002 Symposium. University of Wales Institute Cardiff, UK July 2002 / This paper considers the problems of both mechanical production and the problems of translation of problem to spreadsheet representation. `
Goswami S, Hock Chuan C, HeeWoong K. The Role of Visualization Tools in Spreadsheet Error Correction from a Cognitive Fit Perspective. Journal Of The Association For Information Systems [serial online]. June 2008;9(6):321-343. / This study investigates the role of visualisation tools in spreadsheet error correction. For this purpose, the study proposes a framework classifying activities associated with spreadsheet error correction. The framework is to highlight the activities that are important for correcting different times of spreadsheet errors, and to show how different visualisation tools can aid error correction by effectively supporting these activities.
Kobielus J. Spreadsheet governance is a must. Network World [serial online]. November 13, 2006:43 / An editorial is presented discussing the importance of spreadsheet governance in master data management. The author states that he recognizes that spreadsheets are one of the primary client applications for viewing and working with master reference data from corporate data warehouses, a use which makes it easy for the users to disregard the MDM controls regulating data warehouse operations. He argues that spreadsheet governance should be a main component of every organization's MDM and regulatory-compliance strategies and that organizations must also be able to identify which spreadsheet version a certain user relied on at a particular time.
Higgins K. ERP Goes On The Road. Informationweek [serial online]. May 23, 2005;(1040):52-53 / The article focuses on Quaker Chemical Corp. which uses data-warehouse tools to extract custom data from its PeopleSoft application and fold it into spreadsheets for mobile users. A data warehouse now pushes enterprise resource planning (ERP) data out to some users. The push approach is a logical next step for Quaker Chemical, which four years ago implemented a single-instance ERP system to eliminate the multiple ERP applications at each of its regional sites. The company also integrated its existing clustered Windows 2000 SAS 9 data-warehouse system with the PeopleSoft ERP application.
Hyle R. What Do You Know?.Techdecisions [serial online]. October 2007;9(10):10 / The article discusses the decision of Folksamerica Reinsurance in 2005 to create an enterprise data warehouse and associated reports for loss-reserving and other critical business processes. The loss-reserving system is aimed at replacing the Excel spreadsheet reserving system used by the company. The company created a pilot project for all the business intelligence vendors wherein the reinsurer gave the vendors information and required them to return with reports. As of 2007, the capability of the data warehouse is being demonstrated to senior managers.
Catherine Ma, David C. Chou, David C. Yen, (2000) "Data warehousing, technology assessment and management", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 100 Iss: 3, pp.125 – 135 / Data warehousing is the technological trend for the corporate decision support process. This article investigates the current business environment of the data warehouse, including OLAP, data mining, data visualization and other technologies. This article also analyzes the importance of data warehouse management and maintenance and its future developments.
Saran C. Cognos takes the place of easyJet's Excel. Computer Weekly [serial online]. July 4, 2006;:25 / The article focuses on the move of budget airline, easyJet Airline Co. Ltd. to incorporate Cognos Inc.'s enterprise resource planning software inplace of Excel workbooks, the system that it was earlier using. It is stated that Cognos Planning is being used across all of easyJet's fixed costs and consolidated profit and loss accounts. Paul Gibson, easyJet's planning and analysis manager, said that the company struggled with spreadsheets due to the complexity of the planning models and also had problems collating information
KARLIN B. Better Than Spreadsheets. Treasury & Risk [serial online]. February 2009;:18 / The article evaluates the Strategic Investment Management Blueprint from IBM Corporation and its Cognos unit.
Thomas D. Virgin Holidays boosts planning. Computer Weekly [serial online]. September 2, 2003;:8 / Tour operator Virgin Holidays Ltd. expects to boost margins and improve forecasting after completing the implementation of a centralized planning system. The move reflects the increasing importance of accurate planning and forecasting for travel companies, which have seen margins squeezed by the emergence of online agents, low cost airlines and the downturn in travel following terrorist attacks, the Iraq war and the outbreak of the SARS disease. The enterprise planning system from Cognos Inc., will replace a variety of different forecasting spreadsheets and will integrate product and brochure planning with operational data such as costs and resources. This will mean all departments, including sales, marketing, call center and passenger services, will have an improved understanding of Virgin Holidays' product, brochure and sales channel profitability, said Ashley Royston, general manager of product and commercial at the operator.
Coffee P. QlikView helps users explore wealth of data. Eweek [serial online]. August 4, 2003;20(31):47 / Software company QlikTech International AB's QlikView 6 is a relatively self-contained solution that takes advantage of memory-rich machines to build interactive front ends for exploring and presenting information from many sources. QlikView 6's advanced core design, extended in May 2003, update with new options for integrating local and server operations, is somewhat offset by a Windows-centric implementation that seems a little last-century. QlikView's design metaphor of documents driven by scripts resembles some early-1990s efforts to add more custom programmability to the spreadsheet metaphor. QlikView is not as complex as many network-based competitors, in that it avoids the need for an IT shop to adopt and understand an extended platform such as Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition.