Abstract:

This paper seeks to analyze the influence of consumers’ moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment in purchasing pirated software. There have been a number of studies using different models identifying what drives consumers towards purchasing pirated software. This paper, however, will use the issue-risk judgment (IRJ) model. Moral intensity includes magnitude of consequence, social consensus, probability of effect and temporal immediacy; perceived risks of consumers include financial, performance, prosecution and social risks; and moral judgment is based on cognitive moral development and reasoning. This paper also examines the role of demographics, past purchase experience and price on consumers’ purchase intention of pirated software. Results show that consumers’ purchase intention is influenced by their perceived moral intensity, perceived risks, moral judgment and their demographics, price and past purchase experience.