Decision making in Global Product Development: Case studies from Danish industry

Globalisation leads engineering firms to replace traditional co-located development with global distributed development activities. They make decisions regarding global product development; often with limited experience and information available. Previous research points towards a need for better understanding and support of decisions made in global product development.

Through case studies, this paper explores what information is needed for specific decision types. Findings show that decision making is often not a well-structured process, but also give an understanding of which assessments are needed for different decisions. The empirical data serves as input for further development of managerial decision support tools.