Financial

lINGA-LILL SÖDERBERG

Financial Advisory Services

Exploring Relationships between

Consumers and Financial Advisors

© Inga-Lill Söderberg

Centre for Banking and Finance

The Royal Institute of Technology

100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Cover illustration: Robert Nyberg.

Print: US-AB, Stockholm, December, 2012.

TRITA/KTH/CEFIN-DT-07

ISSN 1654-9376

ISBN 978-91-87111-00-6

INGA-LILL SÖDERBERG

Financial Advisory Services

Exploring Relationships between

Consumers and Financial Advisors

Doctoral thesis in Business Studies

The Built Environment and Society: Management, Economics and Law

Centre for Banking and Finance

School of Architecture and the Built Environment

Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm

Sweden

Abstract

The need for more knowledge about different aspects of financial advisory services

has been highlighted by scholars of many disciplines, and calls for more in-depth

studies of this practice have been put forward. The purpose of this thesis is to answer

this call and, thereby, enhance knowledge about financial advisory services and the

provision and receipt of advice occurring in a face-to-face encounter between a

professional advisor and a consumer. The thesis consists of five papers in which

different methodological and theoretical lenses are applied to the study of the

practice. A mixed methods approach is applied to the object of study—financial

advisory services. This approach entails using qualitative methods to analyze videorecorded interviews and quantitative methods to analyze survey data. The qualitative

methods are used primarily to generate new constructs and ideas, whereas quantitative

methods are used more to confirm and deepen the knowledge of constructs and

relationships.

The findings show that there are important aspects of financial advisory

services that have been previously neglected. The characteristics of both consumers

and advisors, as tested from the aspect of gender, are shown to have...