Examining Factors that Influence Healthcare Practitioners’ Intention to Invest in Unit Trusts in Malaysia

Abstract

Although in general, Malaysian healthcare practitioners have comfortable life, there are few reports on their financial status and practices especially for retirement purpose. At the same time, unit trusts as one of the financial investment tools available in Malaysia and is growing steadily since the introduction of Amanah Saham Nasional in the 1980s. The main objective of the paper is to examine the factors that influence healthcare practitioners’ intention to invest in unit trusts in Malaysia. This paper applies variables such as demographic profile, financial literacy, risk tolerance and intention to invest in unit trust. The survey questionnaires were given randomly through social media to the healthcare practitioners in Malaysia until 384 samples participated. The demographic profile’s data was analysed for frequency and percentage while the financial literacy, risk tolerance and intention to invest in unit trust were analysed for mean and standard deviation. The Kruskal-Wallis Test and Spearman's Correlation is used to determine the relationship between the variables. The findings showed that there are positive relationships between financial literacy and risk tolerance with intention to invest in unit trusts, but insignificant relationships once demographic profile was added. It can be concluded that the healthcare practitioners in Malaysia’s intention to invest in unit trusts is dependent on financial literacy and risk tolerance.