What Makes an Artrepreneur?

Abstract

We present an exploratory study to examine the antecedents of artrepreneurship, the decision of artists to commercialise the fruits of their practice. We hypothesise and test the influence of three key drivers using a questionnaire-based study with 93 practicing artists. While a number of factors from individual difference psychology are significant explanators, objective characteristics associated with several aspects of artistic practice (such as career stage, income, recognition and time intensity) provide little evidence to explain what makes an artist become an artrepreneur. We also measure the concept of artrepreneurial passion adapted from the business entrepreneurship literature but find no evidence that this drives artrepreneurship. Overall the results, while tentative based on a modest sample size, support a disconnect between artistic identity and business venturing as suggested in the previous work. Instead, individual difference characteristics associated more generally with business entrepreneurship seem to make the artrepreneur.