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Research in progress: the effects of ethical climate on attitudes and behaviors toward software piracy

Published: 01 April 2001 Publication History

Abstract

Software piracy, the unauthorized copying of computer software, is widespread in many organizations today. From the perspective of managers in organizations, software piracy means the threat of costly litigation on the one hand, balanced against the reduced expense for additional software if unauthorized copies are used. It should be possible to exercise more effective control over software piracy with a more complete understanding of the factors that lead to the decision to copy software. The goal of this study is to assess the direct and moderating effects of the organization's ethical climate on a variety of attitudes and behaviors regarding software piracy. Prior research on software piracy has tended to focus on individual factors that influence piracy. This study is part of a multi-year, multi-university study of software piracy. Results from our prior studies suggest that while individual factors such as age and gender influence piracy attitudes and behaviors, these effects appear to be overshadowed by organization effects. In this study, we measure organization ethical climate as perceived by students in three universities and their attitudes and behaviors towards software piracy. The measures of ethical climate used in the literature have been modified to fit the university setting.
Our study promises to make several important contributions. From the perspective of theory, our work should demonstrate the importance of including organizational ethical climate in theoretical models of the antecedents of software piracy attitudes and behaviors. Prior research on software piracy has tended to focus on the effects of individual differences; however, individuals are embedded in organizational contexts that can influence their attitudes and behaviors. From the perspective of practice, demonstrating that different ethical climates directly impact and moderate software piracy attitudes and behaviors has a number or implications for the management of information systems professionals. It is important to know whether certain ethical climates encourage or discourage software piracy attitudes and behaviors. Managers may work to change an ethical climate that fosters software piracy; alternatively, they may need to implement strong measures in the existing ethical climate to discourage software piracy.
Finally, it is important to study software piracy in a university setting, as this is where future information systems professionals are trained. It is imperative for educators to understand students' ethical attitudes and behaviors concerning software piracy, and how these attitudes and behaviors may be influenced.

References

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Al-Jabri, 1., and Abdul-Gader, A., (1997) "Software Copyright Infringements: An Exploratory Study of the Effects of Individual and Peer Beliefs," Omega, (25:3), pp. 335-344.
[2]
Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
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Business Software Alliance, (1997) Did You Know, ttp://www.bsa.org/piracy/diduknow.html.
[4]
Deshpande, S.P. (1996) "Ethical Climate and the link between success and ethical behavior: An empirical investigation of a non-profit organization," Journal of Business Ethics, (15:3), p. 315.
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Garber, J., (1996) "Piracy," Forbes, (157:8), April 22, p. 214.
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Hofstede, G. (1984). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, abridged edition, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
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Peace, A., (1997) "Software Piracy and Computer- Using Professionals: A Survey," Journal of Computer Information Systems, (38:1), pp. 94-99.
[8]
Seale, D., Polakowski, M., and Schneider, S. (1998) "It's not Really Theft: Personal and Workplace Ethics that Enable Software Piracy," Behavior and Information Technology ( 17:1 ), pp. 27-40.
[9]
Sims, R., Cheng, H., and Teegen, H. (1996) "Toward a Profile of Student Software Piraters," Journal of Business Ethics, (15:8), pp. 839-849.
[10]
Solomon, S.L. and O'Brien, J.A. (1991). "The Effect of Demographic Factors on Attitudes Toward Software Piracy" in Ethical Issues in Information Systems, Dejoie, R., Fowler, G., and Paradice, D., editors, Boyd & Frasier, Boston, MA, pp. 168-181.
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Straub, D., and Collins, R., (1990) "Key Information Liability Issues Facing Managers i Software Piracy, Proprietary Databases, and Individual Rights to Privacy," MIS Quarterly, (14:2), June 1990, pp. 143- 156.
[12]
Victor, B. and Cullen, J.B. (1988). "The Organizational Bases of Ethical Work Climates," Administrative - Science Quarterly, (33:3), pp. 101-125.
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Wimbush, J.C., Shepard, J.M., Markham, S.E. (1997) "An empirical examination of the relationship between ethical climate and ethical behavior from multiple levels of analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, (16:16), pp. 1705-1716.

Cited By

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  • (2013)A structured review of IS research on gender and ITProceedings of the 2013 annual conference on Computers and people research10.1145/2487294.2487304(45-56)Online publication date: 30-May-2013
  • (2009)الإدراك والوعي لعملية قرصنة البرمجياتPerception and awareness of the software piracy processQueen Arwa University Journal10.58963/qausrj.v1i4.944:4(18)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2009

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGCPR '01: Proceedings of the 2001 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research
    April 2001
    224 pages
    ISBN:1581133634
    DOI:10.1145/371209
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 01 April 2001

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    Author Tags

    1. computer crime
    2. computer education and training
    3. management of information systems
    4. software ethics
    5. software piracy

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 300 of 480 submissions, 63%

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    View all
    • (2013)A structured review of IS research on gender and ITProceedings of the 2013 annual conference on Computers and people research10.1145/2487294.2487304(45-56)Online publication date: 30-May-2013
    • (2009)الإدراك والوعي لعملية قرصنة البرمجياتPerception and awareness of the software piracy processQueen Arwa University Journal10.58963/qausrj.v1i4.944:4(18)Online publication date: 30-Jan-2009

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