Egoism Versus Altruism In Piracy Behavior

There are three widely used theoretical perspectives to understand individual piracy behavior:(1) general deterrence theory, which postulates that individual piracy behavior is determined by the fear of punishment; (2) ethical decision-making theories, which assume that concern for others' welfare (e.g., altruism) underlies piracy behavior; and (3) rational decision-making theories (e.g., theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior), which claim piracy behavior to be a result of individuals' judgment on self-interest (e.g., egoism). Although these perspectives have provided many insightful findings, there are still two research gaps that have not been addressed properly:(1) the lack of theoretical integration of the different perspectives and (2) the lack of understanding on the contingent effects defining the situations under which the previous theories work.To address the first research gap, three approaches to integrate these three theoretical perspectives are proposed and empirically tested:(1) parallel integration, which treats deterrence process, ethical decision-making process, and rational decision-making process as three parallel processes associated with piracy behavior; (2) sequential integration, which suggests the sequential order of these three processes; for example, the deterrence process is considered to precede ethical decision making and rational choice processes, and the ethical decision-making process precedes rational choice processes; and (3) interactive integration, which considers ethical and rational decision-making processes as two competing decision-making processes and proposes a substitution effect between them.To address the second research gap, one digital good feature (i.e., public good perception) is proposed to moderate the influence of the ethical decision-making process on piracy intention, and one social factor (i.e., social acceptance) is proposed to moderate the effectiveness of the deterrence mechanism.Specifically, in the current dissertation, perceived punishment, including certainty and severity, is considered the proxy of the deterrence process; moral judgment is used to represent the moral decision-making process; and rational judgment is considered to reflect the rational choice process.An online survey with 253 subjects was conducted to collect data. The data analysis results show the following:(1) perceived punishment, moral judgment, and rational judgment can directly influence piracy intention; (2) perceived punishment can indirectly influence piracy intention via moral judgment and rational judgment, and moral judgment can indirectly influence piracy intention via rational judgment; (3) moral judgment and rational judgment, as two competing predictors of piracy intention, have a negative interaction effect (e.g., substitution effect); (4) public good perception moderates the substitution effect between moral judgment and rational judgment; and (5) social acceptance weakens the relationship between perceived punishment, moral judgment, and piracy intention.