Lu (2009)
Contents
Source Details
Lu (2009) | |
Title: | Chinese culture and software copyright |
Author(s): | Lu, J. |
Year: | 2009 |
Citation: | Lu, J. (2009). Chinese culture and software copyright. New media & society, 11(8), 1372-1393. |
Link(s): | Definitive |
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Discipline: | |
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About the Data | |
Data Description: | The survey was conducted on college students at a university in Beijing, China in June 2007. A total of 196 questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students in four classes in two departments of the university, collected on-site and checked for completeness. |
Data Type: | Primary data |
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Industry(ies): | |
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Cross Country Study?: | No |
Comparative Study?: | No |
Literature review?: | |
Government or policy study?: | |
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Abstract
This article explores the impacts of Chinese culture on users’ attitudes and intentions about software copyright and piracy. The findings reject the pervasive position that Chinese culture resists software copyright and encourages piracy behaviors. Instead, the study reports that Chinese culture has no significant impact on users’ intentions to use pirated software programs. Meanwhile, collectivistic and individualistic cultural components are found to coexist in the Chinese value system. The users with higher scores in the collectivistic component have more negative attitudes towards software companies, while the users with higher scores in the individualistic component have less negative attitudes towards software products. The coexistence of individualistic and collectivistic components prevents software users from falling into either direction of supporting or opposing software copyright and calls for a balanced account between software owners and users.
Main Results of the Study
- The non-significant contribution of cultural factors to users’ intentions offers no evidence that Chinese culture encourages piracy behaviors
- Chinese culture has varied impacts over users’ attitudes towards software copyright rather than a simplified tendency to resist software copyright.
- In terms of software copyright, if Chinese culture is compared with western cultures, it is often found that Chinese collectivist culture is positively correlated with its high piracy rate (Husted, 2000; Marron and Steel, 2000). This provides the grounds for the argument that Chinese culture resists software copyright and encourages piracy. However, when Chinese culture is empirically tested over individual users, the study is conducted within Chinese culture and with individuals as units of analysis so as to generate the different results.
Policy Implications as Stated By Author
None Stated/Implied
Coverage of Study
Datasets
Sample size: | 196 |
Level of aggregation: | Individual |
Period of material under study: | 2007 |