IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v70y2024i3p2003-2022.html

Digital Engagement Practices in Mobile Trading: The Impact of Color and Swiping to Trade on Investor Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Stephanie M. Grant

    (Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195)

  • Jessen L. Hobson

  • Roshan K. Sinha

    (Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405)

Abstract

As coined by the SEC, Digital Engagement Practices (DEPs) are visual cues and design features to engage investors on mobile trading platforms. With the rise of mobile stock trading, regulators and other capital market participants are concerned that these DEPs may cause retail investors to trade in ways they otherwise would not. Using an experiment, we examine the impact of two common DEPs in mobile trading platforms—color (i.e., the use of green or red to indicate performance) and allowing investors to swipe versus click and confirm to execute trades. Drawing from prior research, we predict that the color associated with firm information will interact with how investors execute their trades to affect investment decisions. Consistent with expectations, results show that investors make the largest investment in a firm when they swipe to trade and firm information is colored green, relative to when they click and confirm to trade or firm information is colored red, holding firm economics constant. Swiping to trade causes investors to focus relatively more on the upside of investing, but only when firm information is colored green and not when it is colored red. The color red leads to a muted effect of swiping to trade as investors experience more negative affect and focus relatively more on the downside of investing. Our study answers calls from regulators and academics to examine the effects of technology on information evaluation in investment decisions, and has important practical implications for investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephanie M. Grant & Jessen L. Hobson & Roshan K. Sinha, 2024. "Digital Engagement Practices in Mobile Trading: The Impact of Color and Swiping to Trade on Investor Decisions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(3), pages 2003-2022, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:3:p:2003-2022
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2023.00379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00379
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2023.00379?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manoj Thomas & Kalpesh Kaushik Desai & Satheeshkumar Seenivasan, 2011. "How Credit Card Payments Increase Unhealthy Food Purchases: Visceral Regulation of Vices," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(1), pages 126-139.
    2. Soman, Dilip, 2001. "Effects of Payment Mechanism on Spending Behavior: The Role of Rehearsal and Immediacy of Payments," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 27(4), pages 460-474, March.
    3. Promothesh Chatterjee & Randall L. Rose, 2012. "Do Payment Mechanisms Change the Way Consumers Perceive Products?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(6), pages 1129-1139.
    4. Blankespoor, Elizabeth & deHaan, Ed & Marinovic, Iván, 2020. "Disclosure processing costs, investors’ information choice, and equity market outcomes: A review," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2).
    5. Ozik, Gideon & Sadka, Ronnie & Shen, Siyi, 2021. "Flattening the Illiquidity Curve: Retail Trading During the COVID-19 Lockdown," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(7), pages 2356-2388, November.
    6. Chan, C.S. Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis, 2015. "How images and color in business plans influence venture investment screening decisions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 732-748.
    7. William J. Bazley & Henrik Cronqvist & Milica Mormann, 2021. "Visual Finance: The Pervasive Effects of Red on Investor Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5616-5641, September.
    8. Drazen Prelec & George Loewenstein, 1998. "The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 4-28.
    9. Feinberg, Richard A, 1986. "Credit Cards as Spending Facilitating Stimuli: A Conditioning Interpretation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(3), pages 348-356, December.
    10. Libby, Robert & Bloomfield, Robert & Nelson, Mark W., 2002. "Experimental research in financial accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 775-810, November.
    11. Daniel Lindegren & Farzaneh Karegar & Bridget Kane & John Sören Pettersson, 2021. "An evaluation of three designs to engage users when providing their consent on smartphones," Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 398-414, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Chunbao & Li, Junxuan, 2025. "The impact of ESG reporting audits on investor decisions: evidence from the capital market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yizhao Jiang, 2022. "The Influence of Payment Method: Do Consumers Pay More with Mobile Payment?," Papers 2210.14631, arXiv.org.
    2. Pratt, Alexander B. & Robinson, Stacey G. & Voorhees, Clay M. & Hochstein, Bryan W., 2025. "Is cash king? The influence of payment form on price negotiations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    3. Falk, Tomas & Kunz, Werner H. & Schepers, Jeroen J.L. & Mrozek, Alexander J., 2016. "How mobile payment influences the overall store price image," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 2417-2423.
    4. Sarofim, Samer & Chatterjee, Promothesh & Rose, Randall, 2020. "When store credit cards hurt retailers: The differential effect of paying credit card dues on consumers' purchasing behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 290-301.
    5. Zha, Yong & Wang, Yuting & Li, Quan & Yao, Wenying, 2022. "Credit offering strategy and dynamic pricing in the presence of consumer strategic behavior," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(2), pages 753-766.
    6. Ma, Qingguo & He, Yijin & Tan, Yulin & Cheng, Lu & Wang, Manlin, 2024. "Unveiling the Impact of Payment Methods on Consumer Behavior: Insights and Future Directions," OSF Preprints 3fphk, Center for Open Science.
    7. repec:osf:osfxxx:3fphk_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sjam, Amelina Apricia, 2025. "Opaque payments, open wallets: The relationship between payment transparency and overspending," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3).
    9. Promothesh Chatterjee & Randall Rose & Jayati Sinha, 2013. "RETRACTED ARTICLE: Why money meanings matter in decisions to donate time and money," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 109-118, June.
    10. Ashby, Rhys & Sharifi, Shahin & Yao, Jun & Ang, Lawrence, 2025. "The influence of the buy-now-pay-later payment mode on consumer spending decisions," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 103-119.
    11. Bernadette Kamleitner & Berna Erki, 2013. "Payment method and perceptions of ownership," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 57-69, March.
    12. Lee, Jean N. & Morduch, Jonathan & Ravindran, Saravana & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2024. "The social meaning of mobile money: Earmarking reduces the willingness to spend in migrant households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 675-688.
    13. Arvind Agrawal & James W. Gentry, 2020. "Why do many consumers prefer to pay now when they could pay later?," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 607-627, June.
    14. Brett Theodos & Christina Plerhoples Stacy & Devlin Hanson & Julian Jamison & Rebecca Daniels, 2020. "Do not swipe the small stuff: A randomized evaluation of rules of thumb‐based financial education," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 701-722, June.
    15. Khan, Jashim & Belk, Russell W. & Craig-Lees, Margaret, 2015. "Measuring consumer perceptions of payment mode," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 34-49.
    16. Jean N. Lee & Jonathan Morduch & Saravana Ravindran & Abu S. Shonchoy, 2023. "The Social Meaning of Mobile Money: Willingness to Pay with Mobile Money in Bangladesh," Working Papers 2304, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    17. Li, Quan & Zha, Yong & Dong, Yu, 2023. "Subsidize or Not: The Competition of Credit Card and Online Credit in Platform-based Supply Chain System," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 305(2), pages 644-658.
    18. Liu, Yunxin & Dewitte, Siegfried, 2021. "A replication study of the credit card effect on spending behavior and an extension to mobile payments," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. Dalla Costa, Aldo Fortunato & Mollica, Vito & Singh, Abhay, 2021. "Payment methods and the disposition effect: Evidence from Indonesian mutual fund trading," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    20. Luqiong Tong & Yuhuang Zheng & Ping Zhao, 2013. "Is money really the root of all evil? The impact of priming money on consumer choice," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 119-129, June.
    21. Eschelbach, Martina, 2017. "Pay cash, buy less trash? – Evidence from German payment diary data," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162908, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:70:y:2024:i:3:p:2003-2022. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.