Integrating affect, cognition, and culture in Hispanic financial planning

Purpose: Debt is at a peak and consumers purport needing help with financial planning. To better understand the antecedents of financial planning behavior, the purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of cultural values in financial decision making within the context of Hispanic American consumers. A new conceptual model is proposed to integrate affect (cultural value) and cognition (financial knowledge) in financial planning. Design/methodology/approach: To uncover respondents’ views on cultural values, financial knowledge, financial attitude, and financial planning behavior, an online survey hosted on a business school’s website was distributed to members of two Hispanic Chambers of Commerce. The survey consisted of five parts, and took each respondent an average of 15 minutes to complete. The final data set has 158 observations. Findings: Results analyzed using structural equation modeling confirmed the hypotheses that financial knowledge, attitude, and perceived control simultaneously influence Hispanic consumers’ intentions to purchase financial planning products or services. More interestingly, these results confirm that multiple different routes coexist in the decision-making process, especially within the Hispanic financial planning context. Originality/value: Key contributions of this paper include the conceptualization of cultural value as an antecedent to Hispanic financial behavior; detailing the different routes to financial decision making for US Hispanic consumers; and informing financial service managers on marketing strategies toward Hispanic consumers.