UNDERSTANDING AND MEASURING USER COMPETENCE

End User Computing (EUC) is experiencing a resurgence of importance as managers realize it is tied to the new knowledge economy through know ledge-worker productivity. Assessing individual's capabilities with re spect to end user technologies is central to both research on EUC and management of EUC in organizations. For this reason, we advance a new construct, User Competence, which is multi-faceted. It is composed of an individual's breadth and depth of knowledge of end user technologie s, and his or her ability to creatively apply these technologies (fine sse). Several issues are explored, including what User Competence mean s, how users differ in their capability, and how these differences rel ate to other individual characteristics. The experimental study of 100 subjects shows that the dimensions of competence relate differently t o individual factors, such as gender, education, self-efficacy, and sp ecific software-syntax skills. Reasons for and implications of these o bserved relationships are discussed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.