Developing software piracy free organization: A case of an American business school in China

Abstract

The habituation of legal software use for students on college campuses is important because it helps future professionals exercise the rules of ethical compliance. In this action research study, over a two-year period, we investigated the effects of planned change interventions (a.k.a. organizational development efforts) on legal software use at an American business school in China. We examined correlations among the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology constructs by using the partial least square structural equation modeling technique. After obtaining the evaluative surveys from undergraduate business students (n = 215), the results indicated that the adoption rate of legal software increased from 40% to 71%, and change interventions accelerated the speed of legal software use. While performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence had significant influences on behavioral intention, we found a substantial gender difference in the effect of facilitating condition on the legal software use behavior. Females are less likely to accept legal software that is mandated by the organizational policy, but they are highly influenced by the social influence. We also found out that participants accept legal software differently according to their respective year in the organization. Relatively new students are sensitive to the organizational policy whereas experienced students give more attention to the benefits of using legal software. Based on these findings, we suggest gender sensitive organizational policy and structured institutional efforts to build a software piracy free organization.