The Power of Knowledge in Shaping Retirement Planning in Jordan: Trust and Advice as Key Factors

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the association between financial advice, trust in financial advisors, financial knowledge, and retirement planning behavior and to determine the role of financial knowledge on the association between financial advice and trust in financial advisors as well as between trust in financial advisors and retirement planning behavior. A quantitative research design was used for the study and data were collected from 412 working Jordanian adults aged 25-60 through the use of an online questionnaire. The results demonstrate that financial advice and trust to financial advisors both directly and indirectly through facilitating financial knowledge impacts retirement planning behaviour positively. The aforementioned findings lend more insight to the literature while confirming the complexity of such relationships in the context of Jordan and offering practical implications for financial service providers, policymakers, and individuals. Nonetheless, its strengths include the use of self-reported data and lack of a longitudinal design. The main contribution of this study is its theoretical and empirical contextualization of the application of the TTM to the study of the impact of financial advice on trust, financial knowledge, and retirement planning behaviour in the Middle East.