An Experimental Study into the Ethics of Digital Property Piracy and Financial Reporting

• In Event: Emerging and Innovative Research Session I

Abstract

Business ethics is of great concern as major lapses in ethical conduct have led to corporate bankruptcy and economic dislocation. Ethics lapses continue despite the continuing emphasis on ethics education, codes of conduct, and legal recourse against unethical behavior. Business students are open about participating in digital piracy (Woolley & Eining, 2006), and also commonly cheat; accountants may be guided more by rule-keeping than by moral decision making. This does not bode well for ethical behavior. Understanding how and why people act unethically will help society know better how to promote ethical behavior. I propose to conduct research that will increase understanding of unethical behavior in financial reporting and digital piracy. The contribution of the research is to test ethics experimentally, thereby to gain a greater understanding of the specific factors that influence ethical behavior: social norms regarding unethical behavior, distance from the victim, the nature of the target of the behavior, and the value of the target of the behavior.

Author

• Darryl J. Woolley, University of Idaho