The Role Of Financial Literacy And Willingness To Learn Finance In Driving Gen-Z Propencity Toward Entrepreneurship And Investements In Securities

Research on financial literacy has grown significantly in the last 10 years as a direct result of a global financial crisis (Fessler et al., 2020). It has predominantly focused on an individual's current level of literacy and the factors that influence it, as well as the positive effects of higher levels of financial literacy. In addition to the concept of financial literacy, the focus of this research is on the willingness to learn about finance, which implies the individual's proactivity in acquiring additional knowledge in finance. Thus, in addition to static perspective through financial literacy, proactivity and future learning propensity have been considered. The research focuses on the effects of these concepts on the investment intentions of generation-Z, in terms of starting their own entrepreneurial project (which represents an investment in a new company) and investing in securities (which represents an investment in an existing company). The results show the importance of financial literacy for the propensity of Generation-Z towards entrepreneurship, as well as toward their propensity to invest in securities. On the other hand, the willingness to learn about finance has a positive influence on the propensity to invest in securities, but it has no influence on the propensity of generation-Z toward entrepreneurship. The above has clear implications for the importance of investing in financial literacy to the minimum required level, in order to provide the new generations with the necessary knowledge to participate as investors in a new company (tendency to entrepreneurship) and existing companies (tendency to invest in securities).