Factors Affecting Undergraduate Students’ Intention towards Digital Piracy of Software in Sri Lanka: with special reference to Undergraduates in Kotelawala Defence University

Abstract

The development of easy and affordable internet access has led to a growth of Digital Piracy of Software (DPS). DPS has resulted in losses to the Software industry and convictions for some of the people who practice DPS. Therefore, the author identified that it is important to find the factors that affect DPS from a digital consumer’s viewpoint. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that affect the intention of undergraduate students of Sri Lanka towards DPS. The theory that was used for this study is the theory of planned behavior. To reach the purpose of this study, a model was developed which included 4 independent variables: Attitude, social influence (SI), perceived behavioral control (PBC), moral obligation (MO) and one dependent variable (DV): Intention towards DPS. The population of the study comprised of undergraduates in Sri Lanka and non-probability sampling technique was used for selecting the sample for the study. Data collection for the analysis was done using a web- based questionnaire survey which resulted in a sample size of 165 responses. The collected data were analyzed using quantitative analysis techniques with the help of IBM SPSS software. In the analysis process, the reliability and significance of the data were checked first, and then the impact of independent variables on the DV was measured. The results showed that only the MO factor had an impact on IDPS of undergraduates of Sri Lanka from the four factors proposed by the author.