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Project business as a mode of operation is currently very prevalent on international business-to-business markets, and project-related services are an important part of most projects. However the way to market these types of services is under-researched in mainstream marketing literature. Therefore, via a multi-lingual literature review, this article scrutinizes four marketing schools for frameworks relevant to the marketing of project-related services: project, services, transaction, and interactive business-to-business marketing. The analysis shows that the project marketing concepts better capture key aspects of marketing project-related services internationally than do the mainstream service marketing concepts. However, the analysis also suggests that a pluralist approach may be useful when marketing of project-related services, as some frameworks from other marketing schools are also suitable. On this basis, suggestions for marketers of project-related services are presented, and a research agenda for academics concerning the study of project-related services both internationally and domestically is suggested.

At the beginning of the nineties, the Danish construction market was in the midst of a severe slump (Eurostat, 1995). At the same time, the German market was beginning to boom, due to the process of unifying the two German states (European Construction Research, 1995). Because of the poor home market circumstances, many Danish construction industry actors, including individual architects and architectural firms, attempted to find work in Germany (Halskov, 1995). However, the aspirations of most of these actors were dashed. By 1996, many of the largest Danish civil engineering and contracting firms had lost billions of Danish kroner, and a great number of small firms, typically architectural firms or subcontractors in the construction process, had also experienced severe losses, some of which had jeopardized the very existence of these firms (ibid.). This turn of events surprised both insiders in the Danish construction industry and the general Danish population as both groups believed that Denmark has high construction standards and that the most of the firms that had attempted operations in Germany were technically competent and had sound domestic business policies.

Today, services officially represent more than 22% (or about USD 3 trillion) of world trade and are the fastest growing sector of world trade for the last two decades (OECD, 2004; WTO, 2001). Optimist analysts believe that services will reach 50% of world trade by 2020 (Hibbert, 2003). Nearly half of the 100 biggest multinationals are service firms with an average revenue of over USD 50 million in 1997 (Hibbert, 2003; Keillor, Hult & Kandemir, 2004). The American McKinsey and Company in management consulting, the Danish ISS in facility management and the Dutch VNU in business information illustrate how service firms may succeed in gaining and holding a global dominant position. On top of the official service economy, the (hidden) service component of product markets is responsible for a major and increasing part of the total value of the world merchandise trade (Brown et al., 2001; Grönroos, 1990). Illustrative in this respect is the critical role of the global service systems of the Swedish/Swiss ABB in automation technology and of the American Caterpillar in construction and mining equipment.