Conference article

Prior research has looked at the relationship between decision-making style and design strategy in the automotive industry. Table 1 shows the features derived from the prior research of automobile manufacturer’s decision-making styles in Japan; Europe; and the U.S. The decision-making style of Japanese companies differs from that of European and American companies; in that (1) the frequency of decision-making is higher; (2) there is a greater diversity of members in the decision-making process; (3) the number of members involved in decision-making is larger; and (4) group consensus and guidelines are used as decision-making criteria. However; there have been changes in recent years in so called ‘panel evaluation’ methodology; with moves to include the best features of the Japanese and European/US models. This paper also contains the results of analysis comparing these to Korean manufacturers; which have been creating an increased presence in global markets in recent years.

Design management; design decision-making; panel evaluation; design screening