Software Piracy and Ethical Decision Making Behavior of Chinese Consumers

China has one of the highest software piracy rate in the world. It is important to understand consumers' ethical response to software piracy in the Chinese markets and design effective preventive strategies. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for an understanding of consumer ethical decision making. In the proposed framework, the transformation from legal problem recognition to ethical problem recognition is added to the traditional research framework and viewed as the first and most important step in consumer ethical decision making in regards to software piracy. The effects of two culture-related constructs— assumption of responsibility and attitude towards copyright laws on consumer ethical decision making— are examined and two propositions are made. The influence of Chinese culture and history on consumer ethical decision making is discussed. This paper contributes to our understanding of consumer ethical decision making in software piracy and provides new and constructive interpretations of the cultural influence

Software Copyright and Piracy in China

This study is to explore how Chinese software users perceive the issues of software copyright and piracy. Tianya Community, the largest online public forum in China, was selected as a site to study users' online communication about software copyright and piracy. Data were collected over five discussion boards in which software copyright and piracy were discussed extensively to retrieve 561 posting threads with 6,150 messages ranging from March 1, 1999 to June 30, 2007. Lindlof and Taylor's (2002) qualitative communication research methods were used to locate and analyze the recurring dominant themes within the online discussion by Chinese Internet users. The study revealed two opposing discourses existing in software users? perceptions, which represent globalization and anti-globalization processes surrounding software copyright and piracy. Mittleman and Chin's (2005) theoretical framework was adopted to interpret material and spiritual tensions between human/material factors, such as software owners, software users, China, and foreign developed countries. Meanwhile, the actor-network theory was applied to map out the roles of non-human/non-material factors, such as new technology, patriotism, and Chinese culture, which function to moderate the existing confrontations between globalization and anti-globalization by preventing software users from totally falling down into either direction of supporting or opposing software piracy. As a result, both forces of conformity and resistance were found to coexist within software users' perceptions and fragment their identities. To deal with fragmented identities, Chinese software users generally adopted a flexible, discriminative position composed by a series of distinctions, between offline purchasing of pirated discs and software download, between enterprise users and individual users, between foreign and local software companies, between freeware/open-source software and copyright/pirated software, between software companies and independent software developers, and between conceptual recognition and behavioral practice. Meanwhile, traditional resistance movements of Polanyi's (1957) counter-movements and Gramsci's (1971) counter-hegemony were reduced from collective contestations with openly declared call for resistance to Scott's (1990) notion of infra-politics that was communicated among software users and expressed in their everyday practice of piracy use but not in public and government discourse

Contextual factors, knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services: An investigation in China

Copyright @ 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Reuse of this article has been approved by the publisher.In this paper, the authors explore the influences of two major contextual factors—supplier team members’ cultural understanding and trust relationship—on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services. The authors discuss a joint investigation conducted by a cross-cultural research team in China. Cultural understanding is measured by individualism with guanxi and mianzi, two Chinese cultural concepts, and trust relationship is measured by adjusting trust, a notion reflecting the uniqueness of the Chinese people. Knowledge processes are characterized by knowledge sharing. Performance is measured by the outcomes of global sourcing, which is represented by product success and personal satisfaction. Data are collected in 13 companies in Xi’an Software Park, with 200 structured questionnaires distributed to knowledge workers. The results of quantitative data analysis indicate that cultural understanding influences trust relationship greatly, as well as knowledge sharing and performance in global sourcing of IT services. Trust relationship significantly impacts knowledge sharing, whereas trust relationship and knowledge sharing have no impact on performance. This study suggests that special aspects of the Chinese context have significant direct impacts on knowledge processes while no direct and immediate impacts on performance in global sourcing of IT services.National Natural Science Foundation of China, Program for Humanity and Social Science Research, Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University in China and Brunel University's Research Development Fund

Internal and contextual factors, knowledge processes and performance: From the Chinese provider's perspective

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Expert Systems with Applications. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This paper explores the influences of two internal factors, i.e. supplier team’s IT-based skills and communication with client’s team, and two contextual factors, i.e. supplier team’s understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team, on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services from the Chinese provider’s perspective. Knowledge processes are characterized by knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management, and performance is measured by product success and personal satisfaction. Data have been collected in 13 companies in Xi’an Software Park, with 26 in-depth, semi-structured interviews held with top and middle managers, and 200 structured questionnaires distributed to knowledge workers who are involved in global sourcing projects. The results indicate that supplier team’s IT-based skills, communication with client’s team, cultural understanding of client’s culture and collaboration with client’s team are positively associated with knowledge process and performance. Also, knowledge sharing, knowledge-based coordination and expertise management are found to be crucial for those influential factors to function positively and contribute to the performance. The findings of this study suggest that the effects of key factors on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services appear to transcend the social and cultural differences; however, contextual factors seem to have more significant influences on knowledge processes and performance in global sourcing of IT services.National Natural Science Foundation of Chin

Social network market: Storytelling on a web 2.0 original literature site

This article looks at a Chinese Web 2.0 original literature site, Qidian, in order to show the coevolution of market and non-market initiatives. The analytic framework of social network markets (Potts et al., 2008) is employed to analyse the motivations of publishing original literature works online and to understand the support mechanisms of the site, which encourage readers’ willingness to pay for user-generated content. The co-existence of socio-cultural and commercial economies and their impact on the successful business model of the site are illustrated in this case. This article extends the concept of social network markets by proposing the existence of a ripple effect of social network markets through convergence between PC and mobile internet, traditional and internet publishing, and between publishing and other cultural industries. It also examines the side effects of social network markets, and the role of market and non-market strategies in addressing the issues

The Harmonization Game: What Basketball Can Teach About Intellectual Property and International Trade

In the recent World Men\u27s Basketball Championships in Indianapolis, Team USA found out painfully that the international game is very different from what they play at home and that the gap between USA Basketball and the rest of the world has been closing. While the United States\u27 losses might have a significant impact on how the country will prepare for the 2004 Olympics in Athens and on how Americans train youngsters to play basketball, their teachings go beyond basketball. The international harmonization process is a game with different rules, different officials, and players with different visions and mindsets. By watching how players interact with rules, officials, and other players, one therefore could gain insight into globalization and the international harmonization process. Team USA\u27s recent loss might be a painful lesson to Americans, but it provides a beneficial lesson to all of us who are involved in intellectual property and international trade

The Harmonization Game: What Basketball Can Teach About Intellectual Property and International Trade

In the recent World Men\u27s Basketball Championships in Indianapolis, Team USA found out painfully that the international game is very different from what they play at home and that the gap between USA Basketball and the rest of the world has been closing. While the United States\u27 losses might have a significant impact on how the country will prepare for the 2004 Olympics in Athens and on how Americans train youngsters to play basketball, their teachings go beyond basketball. The international harmonization process is a game with different rules, different officials, and players with different visions and mindsets. By watching how players interact with rules, officials, and other players, one therefore could gain insight into globalization and the international harmonization process. Team USA\u27s recent loss might be a painful lesson to Americans, but it provides a beneficial lesson to all of us who are involved in intellectual property and international trade