Softlifting: Exploring Determinants of Attitude

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. Dr. Tim Goles is an assistant Professor in the Information Systems Department of the University of Texas-San Antonio. He has numerous publications, most of which pertain to information systems. Dr. Bandula Jayatilaka is an Assistant Professor in the School of Mangement in Binghamton University-SUNY. Most of his publications pertain to information systems. Dr. Beena George is an Assistant Professor at the Cameron School of Business, University of St. Thomas, Houston, Most of her pblications pertain to information systems. Dr. Linda Parsons is an Assistant Professor in the Accounting Department at George Mason University. Most of her publications pertain to accounting information systems and nonprofit organizations. Dr. David S. Taylor is an Assitant Professor at Sam Houston State University. Most of his publications pertain to information systems. Rebecca Brune has a strong accounting background; her work is predominantly in the information systems field.     

An empirical and ethical analysis of factors motivating managers' merger decisions

This paper examines the role of managerial self-interest in the merger market. It looks at factors influencing managers' merger decisions by analyzing managerial expense preference factors on cross-sectional data employing non-parametric statistical methods. The same factors are examined for acquiring, acquired, and merging firms, and control groups used in each case. The results support the authors' contention that managerial discretion is a significant motivating factor for mergers. The changes in expense preference factors indicate management decisions which provide conditions allowing management to indulge in management preferred expenditures, while reducing risk to their career. The authors then provide a moral/philosophic framework of ethical analysis for examining manager's merger decisions, using teleological and deontological theories. They conclude that merger decisions motivated or influenced by self-interest are unethical and, in the process, provide managers facing a merger decision with a framework for making an ethical decision.Dr. Francis Achampong is a Professor of Business Law and Insurance at Norfolk State University, in Norfolk, Virginia. He is licensed to practice law in New York and Virginia. He has published in journals such as theJournal of Risk and Insurance, theInternational and Comparative Law Quarterly, Dickinson Law Review, and theAkron Law Review.Dr. Wold Zemedkun is an Associate Professor of Finance at Norfolk State University, In Norfolk, Virginia. He has published in journals such as theJournal of Business Strategies, theAkron Business and Economic Review,, theJournal of Financial Education, and theAtlantic Economic Journal.     

The Effect of Interpersonal Influence on Softlifting Intention and Behaviour

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.     

Development and Validation of Ethical Computer Self-Efficacy Measure: The Case of Softlifting

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.     

A study on motivating employees’ learning commitment in the post-downsizing era: Job satisfaction perspective

From the resource-based perspective, organization learning is the foundation of firms creating their special resources and thereby increasing their competitive advantage. Organization learning is indeed derived from individual learning within the organization. However, many firms have adopted downsizing strategies to reduce the redundancy. Nevertheless, it had a great impact both on laid-off employees and remaining ones. The remaining employees lost their trust, loyalty toward the firm and eventually left. The consequence not only affected the firms’ daily operation but also impacted employees’ learning motivation for improving their ability to enhance the firm's competitive advantage. In the post-downsizing era, applying appropriate human resource management practices to motivate employees would be a critical issue. The study began with two psychological constructs: job satisfaction and learning commitment to explore the content of job satisfaction which significantly influenced remaining employees’ learning commitment. The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyze the data. The results revealed that the two criterion in job satisfaction “the relationship with colleagues” and “the relationship with the family” significantly influenced employees’ learning commitment. However, this was clearly different from managers’ subjective expectation. The findings provide important implications for both the research field and practical management of downsizing, employee motivation, cross-culture management and strategic HRM practices.     

A model of trade in money,goods and factors

The ‘Oil Crisis’ provides the challenge to analyze effects of a resource shortage in a minimal monetary model of a vertically trading world economy. The one-asset monetary approach to balance of payments theory is employed to demonstrate that in a model with one final good and two inputs the elasticity of substitution between the domestic factor of production and an imported raw material plays the key role in determining the reaction of the balance of payments (= balance of trade).     

Macroeconomic factors and emerging market equity returns: a Bayesian model selection approach

Macroeconomics figures prominently in analyses of emerging markets, both as an asset class and for allocations within emerging markets. However, the literature on the drivers of emerging markets equity returns generally pays little attention to macroeconomic factors. This paper investigates the predictive power of several candidate macroeconomic factors for emerging market equity returns using the Bayesian model selection approach developed in Cremers [Cremers, K.J.M., 2002. Stock return predictability: a Bayesian model selection perspective. The Review of Financial Studies 15, 1223–1249]. The results provide strong evidence against all of the macro factors considered with the exception of exchange rate changes and, consistent with the existing literature, provide strong support for several financial factors, but not beta, as significant predictors of excess returns.     

Brand death: A developmental model of senescence

Drawing on literature underpinning brand management in marketing, product life cycles in economics, fads in sociology and aging in biology, this paper argues that brand demise is inevitable and not necessarily caused by managerial incompetence. Rather, this demise is a natural part of a brand's developmental process, instigated by consumers seeking to satisfy not only their material needs (constitutive utility), but also their self-image (symbolic utility). This paper presents a model of brand senescence to explain this phenomenon and concludes with a discussion of the implications for managerial practice and marketing theory.     

The role of job design and mechanism in motivating feedback-seeking behaviour in transportation service

Employee feedback-seeking behaviour is important to improve job performance and organizational effectiveness. This study investigates the mediating role of psychological meaningfulness on job design and feedback-seeking behaviour. The study draws on empirical data gathered from 681 employees in a transportation service company in Taiwan, and uses structural equation modelling to test our proposed model. Empirical results suggest that psychological meaningfulness plays a crucial and mediating role in the relationships between job enrichment, work-role fit and feedback-seeking behaviour. The implications for practitioners are to stress the role of job design and its mediating process for feedback-seeking behaviour.     

Organizational design: A contingency approach: A model for organic management design

For those firms that operate in a stable environment—an unchanging technology and a certain market—a mechanistic management system is efficient. A great many corporations, however, must have a flexible organizational structure, which can adapt to constant changes in technology and fluctuations in the market. These firms are often characterized by their organic approach to management design. In this article, the authors develop a model for organizational design based on the variables of internal needs and external conditions and illustrate their model with nationally known firms as examples. The model's quadrants are: high uncertainty/low integration; high uncertainty/high integration; high certainty/low integration; and high certainty/high integration.     

小企业国际化研究:一个概念模型

早期的国际化理论认为企业规模是影响企业国际化的关键因素,并认为企业的国际化过程是顺序的、渐进的.但是小企业的国际化参与,以及瞬间国际化、国际化新投机企业和天生全球化企业等新现象的出现使得传统的国际化理论的现实解释力极大地被削弱.最新的一些研究发现,将企业家理论引入到对小企业国际化过程的研究当中将能够比较好地对小企业国际化现象作出解释,因此,文章在对相关研究进行回顾的基础上,借鉴其他研究领域的相关成果发展出一个新的小企业国际化过程概念模型.     

Conditions for disarmament: A game theoretical model

Starting from the widely accepted Prisoners' Dilemma model to describe arms race situations between rival powers, we investigate how changes of preference relations among the four strategy combinations (disarmament and armament for both sides) can help to overcome the arms race dilemma.Part of the research for this paper was carried out under a fellowship from Merriam Laboratory for Analytic Political Research, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA. An extended version of this paper is part of the author's dissertation (Engelmann 1993) at Technical University Darmstadt, Germany.     

Speeding solar energy commercialization: A Delphi research of marketplace factors

A two-stage Delphi research study was undertaken to determine and measure the attitudes of the public regarding factors that may either inhibit or stimulate solar energy commercialization today and over the next 10 years. Some factors judged important were product cost, lack of product knowledge, lack of governmental support, and public concern over the energy crisis. The factors were determined by a group of energy conscious respondents who completed the Delphi research. They also indicated the likely and desirable actions to be taken by government and business. These included more funding of research and development, tax incentives, increased public education, and reduced prices. The Delphi research proved to be an effective method for investigating solar energy commercialization, as the attitudes expressed in the second survey converged with those identified during the first stage. Furthermore, governmental and business actions suggested in the study could help to initiate greater solar energy use and developmental efforts.     

The timing of version releases: A dynamic duopoly model

In many R&D-intensive consumer product categories, firms deliver value to consumers through the quality enhancements provided by new and improved versions of existing products. Therefore, important marketing decisions relate to a firm’s strategy for developing quality enhancements and releasing new versions. This paper explores this type of product development using a dynamic duopoly model that endogenizes each firm’s decisions over how much to invest in R&D and when to release new versions. Specifically, I explore how two key industry fundamentals—the degree of horizontal differentiation and the cost of releasing a new version—affect firms’ product development strategies and, accordingly, the evolution of industry structure. I find that varying the degree of horizontal differentiation gives rise to three distinctly different types of competitive dynamics: preemption races when the degree of horizontal differentiation is low; phases of accommodation when it is moderate; and asymmetric R&D wars when it is high. Furthermore, I find that an increase in the cost of releasing a new version can induce firms to compete more aggressively for the lead and, in doing so, release new versions more frequently despite the higher cost.     

Naïve theories of price: A developmental model

A model of the development of naïve theories of price is presented and tested. The criterion used to account for price variations within a product category is product features at age five, product features and quality at age ten, product quality and buyer utility at age thirteen, and a combination of supply considerations and buyer utility/demand in adulthood. Five-year-olds do not justify their use of product features as a price criterion; however, older respondents all justify their price criterion by referring to a source of value. At age ten, variation in the amount of manufacturing inputs is the source of value which justifies the use of product features as a price criterion; at age thirteen, variations in the quality of manufacturing inputs justify the use of product quality as a price criterion; and in adulthood, relative scarcity and buyer preferences justify the use of cost and demand as price criteria.     

Toward an understanding of cross-cultural ethics: A tentative model

In an increasingly global environment, managers face a dilemma when selecting and applying moral values to decisions in cross-cultural settings. While moral values may be similar across cultures (either in different countries or among people within a single country), their application (or ethics) to specific situations may vary. Ethics is the systematic application of moral principles to concrete problems.This paper addresses the cross-cultural ethical dilemma, proposes a tentative model for conceptualizing cross-cultural ethics, and suggests some ways in which the model may be tested and operationalized.William A. Wines is Professor of Legal Environment and Business Ethics in the Management Department, College of Business, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA. His research interests include business ethics, employment law, and public sector collective bargaining.Nancy K. Napier is Professor of Management and Chairman of the Management Department, College of Business, Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA. Her research interests include international business, mergers and acquisitions, and human resource management.     

Consumer similarity judgments: A test of the contrast model

A general model is described that views similarity judgment as a contrasting of product features. The relative influence of common and distinctive features on perceived similarity is considered a function of the context or task environment. A memory probe is used to measure the common and distinctive features consumers associate with various products. The feature measures are then used to estimate the model under three different task environments: similarity, dissimilarity, and subject/referent similarity. The results support the model and the effect of the task environment on judgments of interproduct similarity.     

A layered model of organizations: Communication processes and performance

Modeling organizations is most useful for predicting the outcome of decisions and courses of action. However, the tendency has been to view an organization too narrowly, thus overlooking critical variables. For example, financial models are based on abstract indicators and do not adequately describe human factors. This article offers a five‐layer, multidisciplinary model, where each layer defines units of analysis and subsystem boundaries. The layers (behavior‐motion, activity, process‐procedure, function, mission) define arenas of practical action, ranging from individuals’ moment‐by‐moment behaviors, such as making telephone calls, to broad policy decisions and functional structure of organizations.     

Exploration in product usage: A model of use innovativeness

In this article a conceptual model of use innovativeness is proposed. Use innovativeness is positioned within the broader innate innovativeness construct. Use innovativeness is conceptualized as a consumer's receptivity/attraction to and creativity with using products in new ways. Thus, use innovativeness focuses on the origination and production of new product uses rather than the adoption of new products. Relationships between innovativeness, use innovativeness, and use behaviors are explicated. In addition, issues in construct measurement and validation are also highlighted. Finally, a research agenda that flows from the proposed model is suggested. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.