SYNOPSIS:

Despite the widespread use of spreadsheet programs, there is little understanding of how these systems affect decision processes. A laboratory experiment employing a protocol analysis technique was conducted to investigate the impact of Lotus 1-2-3 on decision processes. The experiment tested whether the use of Lotus could induce a change on two decision processes, alternative generation and alternative evaluation, over two levels of task complexity. It was found that (1) the use of Lotus had a moderate effect in increasing the average number of alternatives in the less complex task, (2) the use of Lotus did not increase the average number of alternatives generated in the more complex task, (3) the use of Lotus tended to induce an incremental decision process as opposed to a synoptic decision process, and (4) the use of Lotus did not increase the number of attributes considered. The implications of these findings for the use of spreadsheet systems, for the design of future studies, and for business education are discussed.