The Academy of Financial Services (AFS) is excited to be collaborating with FPA to provide an "integrated conference experience" for AFS members this year. The AFS research conference will run for the full 2.5 days of the FPA Conference as part of a dedicated research track bringing the best of AFS and the Journal of Financial Planning (JFP) to you.
- A dedicated Research Room for presentations designed to bring the most relevant research impacting professional financial planners. This includes research sessions sponsored by the JFP and peer-reviewed research papers presented by AFS members. These sessions are CE credit approved.
- The winner of the JFP's Montgomery-Warschauer Award for best research from the prior year will present their research.
- In the Research Room AFS will coordinate other research content such as a panel discussion with the editors of the 4 major FP research journals explaining to planners and academics the type of research content to be found, how to best consume/digest research and apply it to a FP practice and more.
- A new FP Research Shark Tank. Based on the format of the popular TV series a select number of researchers will do 5 minute "pitches" on research that they believe would be significantly impactful for practitioners. Planners and researchers will then vote on the most exciting research proposal.
- AFS are co-ordinating 2 additional mini-breakout research rooms where researchers will present additional peer-reviewed, unpublished research selected from the many submissions we received. A timetable of these sessions can be found below.
- AFS will manage the research rooms for fully-hybrid attendance with face-to-face or virtual attendance. Although the content will be exceptional, we hope to see many of you in person as the networking, exhibit hall, FPA keynote speakers and other sessions outside of the research cannot be experienced any other way.
Impact of the Financial Advisor on Clients' Financial Outcome: An Integrative Model
Short Description
Financial advisors may act as consultants or may be delegated the entire financial advising process. In both cases, researchers tend to conclude that advisors have an impact on their clients’ financial outcome. However, there is no agreement on the nature and extent of this impact. We argue that such discordance in the results being reported in prior research arises from the different theoretical lens used to observe the phenomenon: agency theory, trust theory, and the concept of knowledge. In our view, the complexity of advisors’ contribution to their clients’ outcomes requires a novel approach that extends beyond a single theory. Relying upon a literature review, we propose an integrative multi-theory model that reconciles prior findings and illustrates how financial advisors impact clients’ outcomes at each step within the financial advising process. Practice-grounded, the model also provides a causal mechanism clarifying the opaque and complex services provided by financial advisors.