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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The authors develop directions for research into project marketing as part of organizational project management.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for the success of megaprojects. Megaprojects are often said to fail because they finish late and/or overspent. As megaprojects are usually complex, so small changes in input can lead to disproportionate changes in output. So the time and cost targets at the start can have little validity. They are useful targets, not values which can be used to judge success or failure. The authors suggest that a megaproject is a success if it produces a worthwhile result at a time and cost that makes it valuable.

The authors develop a new model for the success of megaprojects, and asses its applicability against a number of case studies from well-known sources.

The authors identify four dimensions of megaproject success: they produce an output at a time and cost that makes it valuable; they achieve the desired outcome and benefit at a time and cost that makes them valuable; they deliver positive net present value; and they deliver a business or public need at a time and cost which makes it valuable.

The authors propose a new model for megaproject success that moves away from the so-called iron triangle or triple constraint, which are meaningless in the context of complex projects. Time and cost to completion cannot be predicted on complex projects. However, targets are required because a megaproject must produce a valuable outcome at a time and cost that makes it valuable.

The paper produces a new way of assessing the success of megaprojects which will lead to a larger number of megaprojects being assessed to be successful. It indicates what is truly important, that the megaproject should produce and outcome of value at a time and cost that makes it valuable.

Megaprojects often produce benefits to society over and above the financial benefits. Often an economic benefit cannot be paced on these social benefits, which makes it problematic to assess the value of the project. In one of the cases economic value was placed on the social benefits, and the benefit:cost ratio was increased from 0.85 to 2.5.

The authors propose a new model for the success of megaprojects.

The purpose of this paper is to use an organizational design perspective to determine the scope of the state-of-the art of research into project-based organizations.

The paper follows a structured framework-based literature review approach. It uses an analytical framework from the organization design literature to assess 177 papers relevant to the design of the project-based organization that were published in four leading PM journals between 2008 and 2015. The authors determine which elements of organization design are covered in each paper and identify specific research themes for each of the element emerging from the literature. Finally, the authors examine the degree to which interdependencies among separate elements are addressed in the literature and discuss the most holistic papers in more details.

The results show that the literature on project-based organizations downplays broader organizational issues (such as organizational strategy, incentive schemes and performance management systems) while emphasizing research agenda inherited from research on single project management. In addition, the study highlights limited attention in the literature to the interdependence between separate design choices. Finally, it develops a research framework to map current themes in the literature and their relative importance and discusses a prospective research agenda.

Academic implications stem from looking at the project management literature from a fresh theoretical perspective and putting project-based organization as a whole in the focus. There is a great research potential in studying organization-wide aspects and interdependencies between various organization design choices in project-based organizations.

Reflective practitioners could benefit from a wider view on the project-based organization and its design. They could also use the developed framework in management discussions.

The paper offers a novel way of conceptualizing research on project-based organizations by linking it to an established stream within the field of organization theory and design.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The authors propose that small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) need simpler, more people‐focused forms of project management than traditionally used by larger organizations. The authors have undertaken this research to identify to what extent SMEs use project management and what are the key components used.

Based on the results of the two previous stages of their research the authors formulate the three propositions about the use of project management in SMEs, which they test through a web‐based questionnaire.

More than 40 per cent of the turnover of small and micro‐sized companies is undertaken as projects, and in the first two years of their lives more than 60 per cent. People in these companies multi‐task, so these projects are managed by people for whom project management is not their first discipline. At a key stage of their development, SMEs undertake many projects managed by amateurs. A simplified version of project management should have requirements definition at its core, and practices for managing the work, duration and resources used. People focused methods which seek team member commitment are preferred.

The results should aid in the development of project management approaches for use by the non‐specialist project managers in SMEs. The authors have shown that different versions of project management may be required for micro‐sized and small companies (a micro‐lite version), and for medium‐sized companies (a lite version).

Project management theoreticians need to recognise that different versions of project management are required in different circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative importance of project managers' attitudes towards their project and their leadership competences for achieving project success. Leadership competences were assessed as emotional, managerial, and intellectual competences (EQ, MQ, IQ, respectively) using the leadership dimensions questionnaire. Attitudes were assessed through the importance project managers assign to the project success criteria.

Building on the competency school of leadership theories, this study used 400 responses to a global web‐based questionnaire to identify the variances in attitudes and leadership competences of project managers and its relation to project success. ANOVA and regression analyses were used to identify how attitudes and leadership competences related to project results.

The paper identifies two types of results variances, these are, variances in project results and variances in business results. The former is caused by the attitudes of project managers, the latter is caused by a mixture of their attitude and emotional competences.

The results show the relative importance of specific attitudes and leadership competences for different types of project success.

The results indicate key areas for project manager development in order to move from mediocre to superior project results.

The paper builds on prior work in EQ, MQ, and IQ for project management and is the first study to identify a migration theory for the combination of attitudes and leadership competences for project success.

Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economy, in terms of employment and their contribution to national wealth. A significant proportion of that contribution comes from innovation. SMEs are also the engine for future growth in the economy. Project management has a role to play in managing that innovation and growth. The purpose of this paper is to find the extent to which SMEs use projects, project management and the tools of project management, and to determine what differences there are by size of company and industry.

A questionnaire was developed to examine the extent to which small firms carry out projects, the resources they employ, the way they measure project success and the tools and techniques that they use. The questionnaire was answered by 280 companies from a range of industries and sizes.

It is found that companies of all sizes spend roughly the same proportion of turnover on projects, but the smaller the company, the smaller their projects, the less they use project management and its tools. Surprisingly, hi‐tech companies spend less on projects than lo‐tech or service companies, but have larger projects and use project management to a greater extent. They also use the gadgets of project management to a greater extent.

It is concluded that SMEs do require less‐bureaucratic versions of project management, perhaps with different tool sets than the more traditional versions designed for medium‐sized or large projects, and with different versions for medium, small and micro projects. For all firms, the important success factors are client consultation; planning, monitoring and control; and resource allocation are also identified.

The findings suggest the need for further research into the nature of those “lite” versions of project management designed for SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the differences between leadership competences of project managers and those of functional managers.

Leadership styles of 414 project managers were assessed using a validated research instrument, the leadership development questionnaire. The results were compared with the leadership profiles of over 1,000 functional managers, assessed with the same instrument. Quantitative analysis techniques were used to identify significant differences in the leadership styles of project managers when compared to functional managers. Correlations between leadership competences and leadership performance and follower commitment of project managers were compared with those of functional managers.

The paper finds that project managers score higher than functional managers on conscientiousness, sensitivity, and critical analysis, but they score lower on communication and development competencies. The correlation between the fit of project managers to their organizational context and their leadership performance and follower commitment was calculated.

Comparisons show differences in leadership competences for functional and project managers. Managers in general management roles should be trained to a lesser extent in managerial and intellectual competences than those in project management roles. However, solid training in emotional competences is needed for success in both managerial roles.

The differences in leadership competences of project managers and line managers from industry and government are identified.

Spreadsheet software packages find ready applications in Western nations with a high proportion of PCs having a spreadsheet package installed. In Taiwan there is a high degree of acceptance of this class of software. In the People′s Republic of China, however, there is not the same degree of acceptance with only a very small proportion of end users utilizing this important class of software. Discusses the present situation with respect to the use of spreadsheet software in China and presents several reasons why the level is low.