Softlifting, or the illegal duplication of copyrighted software by individuals for personal use, is a serious and costly problem for software developers and distributors. Understanding the factors that determine attitude toward softlifting is important in order to ascertain what motivates individuals to engage in the behavior. We examine a number of factors, including personal moral obligation (PMO), perceived usefulness, and awareness of the laws and regulations governing software acquisition and use, along with facets of personal self-identity that may (...) play a role in the development of attitudes and therefore intentions regarding this behavior. These factors are examined across multiple settings expected to be pertinent to our survey respondents: home, work and school. Personal moral obligation and perceived usefulness are significant predictors of attitude across all settings. Past behavior is a significant predictor of intention across all settings, and a significant predictor of attitude in the home setting. We find evidence that awareness of the law causes a less favorable evaluation of softlifting in the school setting only, but has little effect in the home and work settings. As in previous studies, attitude is a significant predictor of intent. We do not find indications that one’s personal self-identity influences one’s attitude towards the behavior and the intention to perform it, except in the case of legal identity, where marginally significant effects are found in the work environment. (shrink)

Softlifting (software piracy by individuals) is an unethical behavior that pervades today''s computer dependent society. Since a better understanding of underlying considerations of the behavior may provide a basis for remedy, a model of potential determinants of softlifting behavior is developed and tested. The analysis provides some support for the hypothesized model, specifically situational variables, such as delayed acquisition times, and personal gain variables, such as the challenge of copying, affect softlifting behavior. Most importantly, the analysis indicated (...) that ethical perception of softlifting has no significant affect on softlifting behavior. These findings suggest major implications for both software manufacturers and academicians attempting to reduce piracy behavior through ethics instruction. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of interpersonal influence on personal software piracy, also known as softlifting. A laboratory experiment with 54 subjects was conducted, in which each subject was told to participate in a software quality evaluation exercise. However, a ploy was carried out to measure the subjects intention in software piracy under different levels of group pressure and financial gains. The results are interesting. On the intention of softlifting, both group pressure and (...) financial gains are significant determinants. The interaction of group pressure and financial gains is also significant: when group pressure is toward pirating software, financial gains is not a relevant factor; whereas when group pressure is toward purchasing, financial gains becomes a dominant factor in softlifting intention. A further survey (with 216 college students from two public universities in Taiwan) designed to investigate the relationship between consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (Bearden et al., 1989) and softlifting intention/behavior. A path analysis demonstrated that normative influence was related to softlifting intention, yet information influence effect was marginal. The effect of normative influence on softlifting behavior was mainly mediated by softlifting intention. Implications are also discussed. (shrink)

The concept of self-efficacy is concerned with people''s beliefs in their ability to produce given attainment. It has been widely applied to study human conduct in various settings. This study, based on Albert Bandura''s social cognitive theory, proposes the employment of self-efficacy for investigating people''s ethical conduct related to computer use. Specifically, an ethical computer self-efficacy (ECSE) construct concerning software piracy is developed and validated. The measurement model of the construct was rigorously tested and validated through confirmatory factor analysis. The (...) results suggest that ECSE can be operationalized as a second-order factor model. The first order constructs are termed use&keep (do not use), distribution (do not distribute), and persuasion (persuade others not to commit piracy). These factors are governed by a second-order construct of ECSE. This construct could be useful to research a wide range of information ethics in the future. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the salient factors influencing consumers’ attitudes and usage intentions towards pirated software. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour, this study investigates the relationships between three sets of factors, i.e. personal, social and perceived behavioural control onto attitudes towards pirated software. Through a multiple regression, only personal factors have shown significant relationship with attitudes towards software piracy. Further results from this study have supported that favourable attitudes towards pirated software is likely to result (...) in stronger intentions to use pirated software. It was found that computer proficiency acts as a predictor for intentions towards pirated software, rather than a moderator as originally postulated. (shrink)

Software piracy is a major global concern forbusinesses that generate their revenues throughsoftware products. Moral intensity regardingsoftware piracy has been argued to be relatedto the extent of software piracy. Anunderstanding of the development of moralintensity regarding software piracy inindividuals would aid businesses in developingand implementing policies that may help themreduce software piracy. In this research westudied the similarities and differences indevelopment of moral intensity regardingsoftware piracy among university students intwo different cultures, the U.S. and Thailand. In particular, we studied the (...) influence of theimmediate community of individuals, such asother students, faculty, and other universityemployees, on the development of moralintensity regarding software piracy of the twogroups of students. Results indicate that, ingeneral, there are significant differences inmoral intensity regarding software piracybetween students from the US and Thailand, andthat gender differences also exist. Though theeffect of the immediate community on theself-perception of moral intensity regardingsoftware piracy of students was significant,there appears to be very little significantdifferences in this effect between the studentsin the two different countries studied. Thefindings have implications for teachingbusiness ethics, and for developing andimplementing policies to curb global softwarepiracy. (shrink)