TY - JOUR T1 - The Effect of Reference Groups on Motivating and Encouraging People to Invest in the Stock Exchange (Case Study: Lorestan Stock Exchange) AU - Mahdavirad, Hamid AU - Samavi Esfahani, Narges JO - International Business Management VL - 10 IS - 11 SP - 2202 EP - 2206 PY - 2016 DA - 2001/08/19 SN - 1993-5250 DO - ibm.2016.2202.2206 UR - https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=ibm.2016.2202.2206 KW - Reference groups KW -investment KW -Lorestan Stock Exchange KW -motivating KW -members AB - This study aims to investigate the effect of reference groups on motivating and encouraging people to invest in the Lorestan Stock Exchange. This study has a main hypothesis and eight secondary hypotheses addressing the effect of close friends, classmates and colleagues, family members, religious figures, teachers and professors, politicians, artists and athletes on motivating and encouraging people to invest in the Lorestan Stock Exchange. The present study is a descriptive survey in terms of data collection. The statistical population includes all individual investors in the Lorestan Stock Exchange. The statistical sample includes 267 people using Cochran formula. Simple random sampling refers to the data collection based on a researcher made questionnaire. Data are analyzed using one sample t test and the binomial and Friedman test. The results show that family members, close friends, colleagues and classmates are effective in motivating and encouraging people to invest in the stock exchange and family members are the most effective ones in this context. ER -