Exploring Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Software Piracy Among Undergraduate Students in a Developing Country

The Relationship Between Gender And Software Piracy

Gender is one of the most heavily researched variables in the literature of ethics. The relationship between gender and ethical judgments has been a highly investigated topic (Zopiatis & Krambia-Kapardis, 2008). There are considerable amount of studies that have investigated the role of gender in the ethical decision making. The results of the previous studies investigating the relationship between gender and information technology ethics generally show that females are more ethical than males. Females are better able to recognize unethical actions than males do (Khazanchi, 1995). Males view unethical behavior in computer usage as more acceptable than female participants do (Kreie & Cronan, 1998; Leonard & Cronan, 2005; Simon & Chaney, 2006; Dorantes, Hewitt, & Goles, 2006; Akbulut et al., 2008; Zopiatis & Krambia-Kapardis, 2008). Females have stronger opposition to unethical behaviors in information technology than males have (Peslak, 2008; Beycioğlu, 2009). Females behave more ethically than males regarding information technology usage (Krisanda & Peslak, 2009).