This study looks at the influence of consumer moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment on the use of pirated software in Taiwan. Moral intensity includes magnitude of consequences, social consensus, probability of effect, temporal immediacy and proximity. Perceived risk is based on financial, performance, social and prosecution risks. Moral Judgment is related to cognitive moral development and reasoning. Seven hypotheses are developed and tested with data from scenario-based questionnaires. One-way ANOVA is applied to assess the differences of respondents’ intentions to consider using pirated software and to actually use pirated or legally acquired software. This will allow us to focus on the variables that form the hypotheses and also the influence of the demographic data that could have an influence on the outcome intention. To find out the relationships among moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment as they relate to the ethical decision making outcome, structure equation modeling is employed to test the interrelationships of all the variables in the entire model. In particular, how moral intensity and perceived risks relate to moral judgment. The results indicate that moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment are related to ethical decision making regarding the use of pirated software. Past use of pirated software was also an indicator. However, demographic variables like age, income and gender were not predictors in the way they had been hypothesized.

This study looks at the influence of consumer moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment on the use of pirated software in Taiwan. Moral intensity includes magnitude of consequences, social consensus, probability of effect, temporal immediacy and proximity. Perceived risk is based on financial, performance, social and prosecution risks. Moral Judgment is related to cognitive moral development and reasoning. Seven hypotheses are developed and tested with data from scenario-based questionnaires. One-way ANOVA is applied to assess the differences of respondents’ intentions to consider using pirated software and to actually use pirated or legally acquired software. This will allow us to focus on the variables that form the hypotheses and also the influence of the demographic data that could have an influence on the outcome intention. To find out the relationships among moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment as they relate to the ethical decision making outcome, structure equation modeling is employed to test the interrelationships of all the variables in the entire model. In particular, how moral intensity and perceived risks relate to moral judgment. The results indicate that moral intensity, perceived risks and moral judgment are related to ethical decision making regarding the use of pirated software. Past use of pirated software was also an indicator. However, demographic variables like age, income and gender were not predictors in the way they had been hypothesized.

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