Does motivation really matter in pursuing artists' goals? An investigation on the mediating role of artists' strategies

Arts marketing literature mainly focuses on the clash between arts and business. At the individual artist level the main research streams investigate the tension of pleasing different audiences and artists’ labor market structure. However, there is a need to explore the role of artists’ strategic orientation in achieving their goals. A model was created to test whether artists’ strategy has a mediating effect on the relationship between their motives and their goal attainment. The analysis was executed in two phases. First, a preliminary qualitative research was conducted to define the constructs of our model. Second, quantitative data was gathered through a questionnaire and by using Baron and Kenny’s (1986) methodology we tested the mediating effect. Results show that intrinsic strategy is important for artists’ intrinsic goals achievement, whereas financial goals are influenced by external factors of art marketing.