Interdisciplinary Approach to Consumer Financial Behavior: Developing a Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to develop a conceptual framework of consumer financial behavior with a multidisciplinary approach. Consumer financial behavior is the subject of research in many scientific disciplines, although it is of greatest interest to economists, sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers. The frailty and still insufficient functionality, as well as the lack of application of the models may result from constantly changing macro and microeconomic factors, changing trends, the impact of generational affiliation, and conceptual-theoretical inconsistencies. Taking into consideration current attitudes toward understanding consumer financial behavior, a contribution to literature is an attempt to diagnose the components of a functional model for financial behaviors, in particular, the diagnosis of input and output factors in the decision-making process. The proposed model of consumer financial behavior consists of five elements: type of consumer, type of financial product, motivation, abilities, and opportunities, and the factors determining them may be both economic and noneconomic.