Darzin International Company Multidisciplinary Engineering Science Open 3 Serial Number 3 2026 07 01 A Qualitative Exploration of Decision-Making Processes in Multidisciplinary Engineering Innovation A Qualitative Exploration of Decision-Making Processes in Multidisciplinary Engineering Innovation 1 14 EN Journal Article 2026 02 18 <p>This study aimed to explore how multidisciplinary engineering teams make innovation-related decisions under conditions of technical uncertainty, disciplinary diversity, organizational constraint, and market-oriented pressure. This qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 24 participants from Tehran-based engineering and technology-oriented organizations. Participants included senior engineers, project managers, R&amp;D specialists, product development experts, innovation managers, and technical consultants who had direct experience in multidisciplinary engineering innovation projects. Purposeful sampling was used to recruit information-rich participants, and data collection continued until theoretical saturation was achieved after the twenty-first interview, followed by three additional interviews to confirm thematic stability. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or online, lasted 45–75 minutes, and focused on participants’ experiences of innovation decision-making, cross-disciplinary coordination, technical evaluation, conflict resolution, risk assessment, and implementation choices. Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis with the support of NVivo software. Analysis produced five main categories: shared problem framing across disciplinary boundaries, evidence-based negotiation under uncertainty, distributed authority and decision ownership, iterative experimentation and risk balancing, and organizational alignment with innovation value. The findings showed that multidisciplinary engineering decisions were rarely linear or purely technical. Instead, participants described decision-making as an interactive process shaped by translation between disciplinary logics, negotiation over evidence, informal influence, prototype-based learning, and organizational expectations regarding cost, feasibility, timing, and market relevance. The study concludes that effective decision-making in multidisciplinary engineering innovation depends on the team’s ability to create shared interpretive spaces, combine analytical and experiential knowledge, clarify decision authority, tolerate controlled experimentation, and align technical novelty with organizational value. These findings contribute to engineering innovation literature by showing how decision-making operates as a socio-technical and negotiated practice rather than a purely rational selection process.</p> https://jmesopen.com/index.php/jmesopen/article/download/58/49