Changing project business orientations: Towards a new logic of project marketing Anne Jalkala a, * , Bernard Cova b,1 , Robert Salle c,2 , Risto T. Salminen a,3 a Department of Industrial Management, Faculty of Technology Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, P.O. Box 20, 53851 Lappeenranta, Finland b Euromed Management & Visiting Professor, Bocconi University Milan, Domaine de Luminy, BP 921, 13288 Marseille Cedex 9, France c Marketing Department, E.M. Lyon Business School, 23, Av Guy de Collongue, BP 174, 69132 Lyon Business School, Ecully Cedex, France KEYWORDS Discontinuity; Orientations; Project marketing; Project business; Solutions Summary In this paper we draw together the changing orientations that have been shap- ing the project business arena during the past years and discuss their implications for the future of project marketing theory and practice. Based on empirical qualitative data from two longitudinal research programmes, we identify ten changing orientations shaping the international project business, and discuss how these orientations challenge the existing concepts of project marketing. By reporting several case examples from our cross- national qualitative data, we illustrate these orientations and analyse how they affect the behavior of project business companies. Finally we discuss them in the light of the existing project marketing concepts and propose new directions for project marketing research in order to keep up with these changing orientations. Based on each identified changing orientation we propose a possible shift in project marketing and draw implica- tions for project marketing theory and practice. ª 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Firms in such industries as aerospace, construction, ship- yards, engineering, etc. are firms where the value creation process includes the search, preparation, bidding, negotia- tion, implementation and transition of a project. These firms thus operate in the project business (Artto and Wikstro ¨m, 2005; Tikkanen et al., 2007), whose specificities call for a unique marketing process, which is project 0263-2373/$ - see front matter ª 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.emj.2009.04.005 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +358 5 621 2623; fax: +358 5 621 2644. E-mail addresses: anne.jalkala@lut.fi (A. Jalkala), bernard.cova@ euromed-marseille.com (B. Cova), salle@em-lyon.com (R. Salle), risto.salminen@lut.fi (R.T. Salminen). 1 Tel.: +33 491 827 348. 2 Tel.: +33 478 337 800. 3 Tel.: +358 5 621 2645. European Management Journal (2010) 28, 124– 138 journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emj