Business Commons^™

Mapping Mutual Fund Investor Characteristics And Modeling Switching Behavior, Mary Jane Lenard, Syed H. Akhter, Pervaiz Alam

Marketing Faculty Research and Publications

Securing a mutual fund that meets investment goals is an important reason why some investors exclusively stay with a particular mutual fund and others switch funds within their fund family. This paper empirically investigates investor attitudes toward mutual funds. Our model, based on investor responses, develops an investor's "risk profile" variable. Results indicate that regardless of whether the investors invest in nonemployer plans or in both employer and nonemployer plans, they consider their investment risk, fund performance, investment mix, and the capital base of the fund before switching funds. The model developed in this study can also assist in predicting …