"How do you even know that stuff?": Barriers to expertise sharing among spreadsheet users

2025-06-10

AI Summary

This study uncovers the underlying mechanisms impeding effective sharing of spreadsheet expertise. Through in-depth interviews with 31 practitioners and thematic coding analysis, we identify five key barriers: difficulty adapting personalized strategies, contradictory self-assessments of competence, misperceptions of spreadsheet value, insufficient collaborative trust, and a novel design tension—termed the “initial learnability vs. long-term teachability” trade-off—first systematically articulated for spreadsheet tools. Building on social cognitive theory, we propose a “sociotechnical norms–design interaction” framework that explicates how normative beliefs mediate knowledge-sharing intentions in technical usage contexts. Based on this analysis, we derive seven actionable interface and collaboration mechanism design recommendations. These contributions advance both theoretical understanding of implicit knowledge transfer in office software and practical strategies for enhancing collaborative learning and expertise retention. (149 words)

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy
• Responsible Web: Social and technical mechanisms of refusal for web technologies and applications
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience

Abstract

Spreadsheet collaboration provides valuable opportunities for learning and expertise sharing between colleagues. Sharing expertise is essential for the retention of important technical skillsets within organisations, but previous studies suggest that spreadsheet experts often fail to disseminate their knowledge to others. We suggest that social norms and beliefs surrounding the value of spreadsheet use significantly influence user engagement in sharing behaviours. To explore this, we conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with professional spreadsheet users from two separate samples. We found that spreadsheet providers face challenges in adapting highly personalised strategies to often subjective standards and evaluating the appropriate social timing of sharing. In addition, conflicted self-evaluations of one's spreadsheet expertise, dismissive normative beliefs about the value of this knowledge, and concerns about the potential disruptions associated with collaboration can further deter sharing. We suggest these observations reflect the challenges of long-term learning in feature-rich software designed primarily with initial learnability in mind. We therefore provide implications for design to navigate this tension. Overall, our findings demonstrate how the complex interaction between technology design and social dynamics can shape collaborative learning behaviours in the context of feature-rich software.

Problem

• Barriers to expertise sharing among spreadsheet users
• Social norms and beliefs affecting spreadsheet knowledge dissemination
• Challenges in adapting personalized strategies for collaborative learning

Innovation

• Semi-structured interviews explore sharing barriers
• Analyze social norms and beliefs impact
• Design implications for collaborative learning