Mitigating response distortion in IS ethics research

Response distortion attributable to a variety of human motivations has long been a recognized problem for behavioral research relying on self reports by individuals. Researchers studying unethical IS behaviors usually need to solicit self reports because of the secrecy of such behaviors. Unfortunately, the unethical nature of those behaviors often subject self reports to various response distortions such as socially desirable responding. This paper discusses the method of psychometric adjustment for response distortion and empirically examines response distortion due to socially desirable responding in a software piracy research. The boundary conditions of psychometric adjustment are then discussed in depth and the use of randomized response technique, an alternative to mitigate response distortion, in IS ethics research is highlighted.