AN INTERVAL ENTROPIC ESTIMATION OF CONSUMER PRIORITY IN MULTI-ATTRIBUTE BEHAVIOURAL ENVIRONMENT – A CASE STUDY OF FINANCIAL INVESTMENT INSTRUMENTS IN AN URBAN VISTA

The service sector in India has witnessed revolutionary change after liberalization of the economy in early 90s and the financial investment sector too experienced exponential growth with the continuous emergence of new financial instruments and rapid change in consumer behaviour. One has witnessed a radical shift in retail investment pattern from the conventional fixed deposits in a bank to different financial instruments - equity, mutual funds, insurance, PPF, real estate, debentures or bonds, precious items to name a few. However, reports on retail investment in different instruments show big disparity. Though considerable research have been found on the role and importance of such financial instruments, existing literature shows the dearth of studies on behavioural aspect, especially related to attitude and preference or consumer priority towards multi-attributes that influence behaviour or preference comparison between different financial investment instruments. The researchers in the present paper first explore consumer behaviour through attitude and preference study towards four financial investment instruments; namely fixed deposit, equity, mutual fund and insurance. Secondly, comparison between the four instruments has been done. Both these studies were done using a highly popular method of Semantic Differential Scaling. The researchers also make a modest effort in predicting the extent to which the consumer priority in a multi-attribute behavioural environment fluctuates for each of the four instruments and applied the unique interval entropy approach as a potent method towards measuring the same. Primary survey forms the basis of this study and Kolkata city is chosen as the urban vista.