Chia-ping Yu, Mei-Lien Young and Bao-Chang Ju
In consumer marketing literature, the ethical/moral components of consumer behavior have been recognized as important factors in individuals’ involvement in software piracy…
Abstract
Purpose
In consumer marketing literature, the ethical/moral components of consumer behavior have been recognized as important factors in individuals’ involvement in software piracy. However, there remains unanswered the question of which specific components are being referred to and how they explain consumer software piracy in the virtual knowledge-sharing community. This question is particularly unaddressed for those consumers who take the risks associated with piracy believing their acts to be taking from the haves (software producers) and giving to the have-nots. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
In this research, the authors propose a synergistic model that adopts the perspective of heroism and social exchange, and test it with the data collected from a virtual community. To test the proposed research model, the authors investigated 489 subjects and examined the hypotheses by applying the partial least squares method.
Findings
The findings show that the heroism construct has significant influence on sharing behavior in relation to cost factors, but not to benefit factors. Heroism stands out as the major construct in explaining sharing behavior. Thus, the research shows that the consumer software piracy present in the virtual knowledge-sharing community is a social behavior of exchange.
Originality/value
Methodologically, the study proposes a new model for researchers and practitioners to understand consumer software piracy in the virtual community. Managerially, software producers should take it into consideration when formulating their product-pricing strategy, to ensure that software producers and the young can both win in the “buy or steal” war.
Details
Keywords
Yu-An Huang, Chad Lin, Hung-Jen Su and Mei-Lien Tung
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of parental and peer norms on idol worship as well as the effect of idol worship on the intention to purchase and obtain the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of parental and peer norms on idol worship as well as the effect of idol worship on the intention to purchase and obtain the idol’s music products legally and illegally.
Design/methodology/approach
A stratified, two-stage, cluster sampling procedure was applied to a list of high schools obtained from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. A return rate of 80 per cent yielded 723 usable questionnaires, the data from which were analysed by the LISREL structural equation modelling software.
Findings
The results suggest that both social worship and personal worship have a significant and positive impact on the intention to purchase music. However, personal worship has a negative impact on the intention to pirate music while social worship appears to strengthen it.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that idol worship is more complex than previously understood. The constructs chosen in this research should be seen only as a snapshot but other variables such as vanity trait, autonomy, romanticism or involvement are not taken into account. Future studies would benefit from inclusion of these variables and a wider geographical scope.
Practical implications
The findings contain many implications to help marketing executives and planners better revise their existing marketing and communication strategies to increase their revenue.
Originality/value
Existing research has tended to examine the impact of idol worship as a whole on the reduction of music piracy, but overlook the two-dimensional aspects of idol worship, hence ignoring the fact that many music firms have not properly utilised idol worship to deal with the challenges associated with music piracy. The findings broaden existing understanding about the causes of two different dimensions of idol worship and their different impacts on the intention to music piracy.