The concept of pension saving is a well-known phenomenon, but the underlying meaning of what this concept really means is not as known. This explorative study is conducted to contribute to existing knowledge by better understanding consumers’ decision making in long-term pension investments. It was made with the purpose to find more variables that can add knowledge to previous research within the field of financial service buyer behavior.
In order to address this purpose, three focus groups were conducted where students from both Umeå University and Linköping University were involved. It was decided to conduct focus groups to create an atmosphere where the participants are encouraged to initiate discussions with each other instead of only asking questions that are answered by the interviewees.
To illustrate the findings from the focus groups a coding process was used to present the findings according to the theoretical framework. The four main theories that have been used are; the Stakeholder Theory, which is used to illustrate the role the student are having in the pension system. The Engel-Kollat-Blackwell model is used to examine the consumer-decision-making process when it comes to investment decisions. The information seeking behavior is used to figure out how students search for relevant information, while our final theory focuses on describing the social media habits of students.
The main result of this study is the identification of five underlying factors that are affecting the students when it comes to making pension investments. These five factors are: The student’s ability to recognize a problem that needs to be solved from internal motivation, external sources as motivators, the level of targeted marketing activity from pension companies, the trendiness of the investment opportunity and the experienced utility level of the investment opportunity.
Source: Umeå University
Authors: Andrén, Jonas | Borg, Jimmy