Repurchase behavior in the performing arts: do emotions matter without involvement?

Consumer repurchase behavior is a major concern for performing arts organizations because of its impact on their financial sustainability and competitive strength. Consequently, prior research has devoted a huge effort to the investigation of customer loyalty to individual performing arts organizations within a conceptual framework of within-category competition. However, arts consumption research has highlighted that performing arts organizations also face fierce competition from other categories of artistic and entertainment products, since consumers believe that different product categories are able to provide similar hedonic and entertainment value. Our paper investigates the antecedents of repurchase behavior at the product category level. Specifically, we focus on the interplay between positive emotions and product involvement as predictors of repurchase behavior in the performing arts at the product category level. In this context, we modeled four different types of relationships among positive emotions, product involvement and repurchase behavior. We then conducted a survey among theatergoers and used structural equation modeling to test the rival models. Our findings indicate that product involvement fully mediates the relation between positive emotions and repurchase behavior in the performing arts.