The research analyses decisions as evaluative outcomes regarding project value. The UK-French Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Station provides the case study. Value is traditionally assessed as inputs ...and outputs. Here, value is conceptualized as a co-created value proposition at the front-end with implications for realization post-completion. Service-dominant logic (SDL) provides the theoretical lens and contributes to a methodological approach for examining projects. Decision-making outcomes provide the evidence from a range of data sources, including reports and commentaries. The methods are interpretative. The findings show that decision-making extends beyond the time-cost-quality/scope dimensions. The long-term issues regarding value realized are often overlooked. Stakeholders and individual actors have mainly focused upon managing political and financial risks, especially time and cost. The research poses challenges to project management analysis, SDL and research design in assessing evidence. Addressing these issues facilitates a knowledge contribution to SDL theorization and the field of project management.
•The paper reports on the first application of service-dominant logic (SDL) for the analysis of a megaproject.•In this way, the paper contributes to an innovative methodological approach for examining projectization.•It conceptualizes value in terms of co-creating the value proposition at the front-end and qualitative realization in use.•The whole lifecycle is part of the service value, providing a contribution to SDL theorization regarding the asset specific context of projects.•The research poses challenges to project management analysis, SDL theorization and in research design for in assessing the evidence.•The positive perspective of the co-creation of value has been complemented by building upon the dark side, the co-destruction of value.
Assessing the value of marketing to a business remains a thorny issue in theory and practice. Decision-making at the finance–marketing interface is under-researched, particularly for project ...businesses. Confronted by demands of accountability concerning the allocation of resources to meet competitive pressures, the paper examines the quality and extent of dialogue in investment decision-making. The return on investment (ROI) and marketing-specific investment (ROMI) are important factors at the marketing–finance interface. ROMI/ROI is examined from quantitative and qualitative viewpoints. The empirical evidence shows that short-term financial criteria dominate and are misaligned to long-term performance of project businesses and business units. Marketing investment in relation to project markets poses a particularly challenging environment. Client lifetime value and programme data sets for ROMI coupled with qualitative decision-making offer ways forward with constructive dialogue at the finance–marketing interface. The paper concludes with detailed recommendations for research and practice.
•Paper proceeds with setting out an overview of the ROMI in the framework of project.•ROMI analysis uses the marketing mix and relationship marketing concepts in the project context.•Qualitative research permits understanding the marketing-finance interface in project situations.•Study permits to check the engagement at this interface (acceptance + management).
•This research explores the dynamics underpinning the interplay of strategy and execution in entrepreneurial project-oriented organizations when an ambidextrous logic is applied.•The empirical ...findings are the result of an explorative longitudinal research on supercar maker Pagani Automobili in the period 2007–2019.•Three integrative mechanisms are suggested to describe the ambidextrous management of the interplay within and between strategy and project levels.•The work also recognizes the critical role of projects in entrepreneurial environments and suggests that the accomplishment of ambidexterity is unique in nature as it is aimed at reconciling the uniqueness of competitive propositions and that of projects within a unique entrepreneurial environment.
This research explores the dynamics underpinning entrepreneurial project-oriented organizations. Specifically, it focuses on how strategy and execution by projects are managed and how ambidexterity – a firm's ability to exploit old certainties while exploring new possibilities – operates as a logic. The empirical findings from an explorative longitudinal research of supercar maker Pagani Automobili in the period 2007–2019, offer an insight of a complex entrepreneurially led project-oriented organization and suggest three integrative mechanisms that describe the ambidextrous management of the interplay within and between strategy and project levels. Additionally, this research recognizes the critical role of projects also in entrepreneurial environments and suggests that the accomplishment of ambidexterity is unique in nature as it is aimed at reconciling the uniqueness of competitive propositions and that of projects within a unique entrepreneurial environment, opening avenues for more theoretical and empirical studies at the intersection of project management and entrepreneurship.
Services are dyadic experiences and many of these experiences require personal relationships for service provision. The co-acting parties' early impressions shape their unique expectations regarding, ...for example, appearance, behavior, and age. In a business-to-business (B2B) context, for example, younger employees might create a favorable impression in design-related tasks, while older employees might create a favorable impression in engineering tasks. The business partner subsequently contemplates the impression made by the individual's age (hereafter referred to as age impression) and ascribes certain competences to the individual.
This paper emphasizes the role of the others' age impressions in a working context. More specifically, a qualitative study's results highlight the impact of age impressions on service expectations and perceptions. The results identify several dimensions of age impressions that allow for adapting service personnel to a B2B context. This paper fills a void in the age-related marketing literature because it focuses on the others' age impression rather than the individual's perception. The paper also contributes to recent customer experience (CX) literature, as it emphasizes the context factors' role in the service encounter. Furthermore, this paper is one of the rare CX studies in a B2B context and enriches research in the CX's adaptability in such contexts.
This study operationalizes an existing concept for the categorization of governance approaches for projects. For that the concept's four governance paradigms, based on the overlay of the ...shareholder–stakeholder orientation with the behavior–outcome control of a project's parent organization are measured. The measurement dimensions were derived from the intersection of governance and organization theory with project management theory, thereby addressing those areas of corporate governance and organizational control that extend into projects. The application of the measurement construct, its validity and reliability are tested through a world-wide questionnaire with 478 responses. Analysis of the responses shows the differences in governance structures for projects by country, project size, and project type. The results are important for managers developing governance structures and academics developing governance theories.
•A measurement construct for governance of projects.•Four categories for the governance of projects are operationalized.•A worldwide survey validated the measurement construct.•Governance of projects differs by country, project type, and size.
Based on a business‐to‐business (B‐to‐B) case within the automotive industry, this study proposes logics (constructivist and determinist, respectively) of protagonists and highlights the complexity ...of their dynamics during the successive project's phases. The concept of milieu will emphasize the complex business in which project marketing takes place; notably, it allows better identification of relevant relationships. Our article focuses on this concept of milieu with regard to the interactions between project marketing and project management actors during project phases. In particular, this article underlines the difference and the accommodation between the dynamics of interaction and the dynamics of congruence of marketing and management logics.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the marketing practices adopted by contractors in project-based industries to win new business and maintain relationships with existing clients.
...Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed eight such contractors, and used activity theory as a lens to analyze the results. The authors investigated project marketing activities at four stages of the project contract life cycle, and against four enablers of collaboration.
Findings
The authors have identified that the service-dominant logic pervades project marketing. Through the project contract life cycle the marketing activity starts with a strategic focus, becomes tactical, then operational and returns to strategic. Project marketing involves executive managers, marketing, client or account managers and project managers. Project managers have a key responsibility for project marketing. The four enablers of collaboration, relationships, communication, going-with and trust, support each other and the entire project marketing activity.
Research limitations/implications
As a contribution to theory, the authors have identified the practices adopted by contractors in project-based industries to market their competencies to clients to win new work and maintain relationships with existing clients. The authors have identified practices throughout the contract life cycle, and practices to develop collaboration. The next step will be to explain these practices in terms of traditional marketing theory.
Practical implications
The results provide guidelines to contractors in project-based industries who wish to improve their marketing activity to achieve sustainable performance. Industry may also find it useful to train or coach their project managers to be conscious of their marketing role.
Originality/value
Previous work has been conceptual in nature and has speculated on the nature of the project marketing performed by contractors to win new projects, and set it against marketing done by the project. This research has empirically investigated the actual marketing practices adopted by project contracting organizations, shown how it varies through the project life cycle and shown how responsibility passes from senior management to the account team and then to project managers. It has also investigated the application of the four enablers of collaboration: relationships, communication, going-with and trust.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to place project marketing within the framework of organizational project management. There has been an ongoing discussion in the project marketing literature ...about whether project marketing is part of project management or project management is part of project marketing. Marketing is done by organizations to create a demand for products or services that have value for customers. The authors identify three types of organization involved in the management of projects, the project, the initiator and the contractor, and review current thinking on how they market their products and services, and create networks and dialogs to bring value to stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors review the literature on project marketing, and develop new models based on an organizational perspective. The authors develop propositions as a basis for further research.
Findings
Marketing is done by three types of organization. The authors label these as marketing BY the project, marketing FOR the project by the contractor, and marketing OF the investment made by the project by the investor. The authors draw links with marketing theory, and introduce the service-dominant logic as a new perspective on organizational project marketing.
Research limitations/implications
Traditionally, project marketing theory has taken the perspective of the overlap between project management and project marketing. The authors take an organizational perspective, and identify avenues for research into how the types of organization involved in the management of projects create dialog with their customers and stakeholders to exchange products and services that have value for them.
Practical implications
Project managers have not traditionally viewed project marketing as having relevance to them. The authors show that providing a service to stakeholders is an essential part of the management of projects.
Originality/value
The authors develop directions for research into project marketing as part of organizational project management.
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