  Past studies show that only a small percent of organizations implement and
enforce formal rules or informal guidelines for the designing, testing,
documenting, using, modifying, sharing and archiving of spreadsheet models. Due
to lack of such policies, there has been little research on how companies can
effectively govern spreadsheets throughout their life cycle. This paper
describes a survey involving 38 participants from the United States,
representing companies that were working on compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002 (SOX) as it relates to spreadsheets for financial reporting. The
findings of this survey describe specific controls organizations have
implemented to manage spreadsheets for financial reporting throughout the
spreadsheet's lifecycle. Our findings indicate that there are problems in all
stages of a spreadsheet's life cycle and suggest several important areas for
future research.
