Decision Context in Mobile Retail Finance: Understanding High-Stakes Consumer Decision-Making

Smartphones have become a central interface for everyday decision-making, including investing. Neo-brokers such as Robinhood and Trade Republic allow consumers to trade anytime and anywhere, making financial decisions increasingly mobile and context-dependent. This cumulative dissertation examines how situational context shapes mobile financial decision-making. Focusing on crowdedness and weather, it investigates how contextual factors influence retail investor behavior and how these effects differ between mobile and non-mobile devices. Across three interconnected articles, the findings show that contextual factors systematically affect investment behavior and that mobile devices alter how investors respond to these influences. By integrating mobile consumer behavior, environmental psychology, and behavioral finance, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of high-stakes decision-making in mobile financial environments.