Past behaviour, financial literacy and investment decision-making process of individual investors

Purpose - This study aims to explore the importance of past behaviour and financial literacy in the investment decision-making of individual investors and examines the validity of the theory of planned behaviour in this context. Design/methodology/approach - The study used a self-administered questionnaire and adopted the convenience sampling technique followed by a snowball sampling method for the survey to collect data from the individual investors covering the four distinct states of India. Collected data were analysed on AMOS 20.0 using two-step structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings - Results indicated a significant effect of all the predictive variables. Past behaviour showed no significant direct impact on investor's intention; however, it had an indirect significant relationship while mediated by the attitude of investors. The multiple squared correlation (R2) showed that the final model could explain 36% of the variance in investors' intention towards stock investment which signified a successful implementation of the TPB model along with external variables added to it. Moreover, Indian investors were found to be highly influenced, primarily, by social pressure which could be curbed through financial literacy. Practical implications - A significant importance of subjective norms was found on stock market participation which could be a strategic theme for the government and the policymakers to educate investors through their opinion leaders for increasing their participation. Moreover, by doing so investors could control their behaviour and take rational decisions. Originality/value - This study extended the understandings of investor's decision-making behaviour using TPB by incorporating the two external variables viz., Financial literacy and past behaviour. The addition of past behaviour is perhaps the novelty of this article since such examination has not been conducted empirically especially in the case of developing countries like India.