A Conceptual Model of Trust, Perception, Attitude, Awareness and Investor Behaviour in Mutual Funds

This conceptual document establishes that the most important organizing construct in developing a framework of investment behaviour towards SBI Mutual Funds is trust. Based on this, institutional reputation, investor awareness, transparency, and socioeconomic variables serve to shape the multi-layered overall perception structure for mutual fund participation. The three primary theoretical contributions identified in this paper are: (1) the identification and conceptual foundation of the SBI Trust Premium, along with its behavioural impact; (2) an archetype approach to categorizing investors as a function of their level of trust and investor awareness; and (3) a discussion regarding how the digital transformation generates new forms of trust which have different impacts than those created by historically established institutional returns. The following paths can be considered as a future direction of research. First of all, large scale empirical study can be performed with the help of mixed methodology, which means performing surveys with the help of Likert-type scales along with econometric analysis of behaviour. With this approach, the suggested connections can be tested in practice in various regions and different social groups of investors. Second, one may perform longitudinal study, which means tracing the changes in perception and trust during changing market situation to find out how institutional trust manifests itself during periods of poor results of mutual funds, and also to create database regarding institutional trust under changes in regulation. Third, controlled experiment similar to behavioural economy experiments can be performed to find out what exactly causes the Halo Effect during investors' decision making. Finally, comparative analysis can be conducted for state sponsored mutual funds (SBI, UTI, LIC) and similar mutual funds from private sector.

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