Exploring Personal Saving Orientation’s Influence On Investment Decision-Making

Individuals’ economic conditions are always under the influence of psychological factors that are more prominent in unpredictable economic conditions, yet the impact of several key elements remains underexplored. Keeping in view the importance of psychological factors, our study examined the mediating role of Personal Saving Orientation (PSO) between psychological factors—desire for learning, flow experience, and social support, and investment decisions. This study analyzed the roles of flow experience, social support, and desire for learning in shaping investment decisions in the context of the collectivist culture of Pakistan. Our study is grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and collected data from 516 investors. Our analysis using the PLS-SEM technique shows that the Knowledge-seeking behavior and social support play a significant role in shaping investment decisions. However, flow experience did not have a significant effect. Moreover, the personal saving orientation acts as an intermediary variable that strongly influences the relationships of experience and support on investment decisions, except for knowledge-seeking behavior. These results enable investors to understand the influence of social behavior and psychological elements on investing choices and provide a mechanistic description of the mediating impact of personal saving orientation on this outcome. Further implications for practice are discussed.