EXPRESS: Far Apart, Slower Together: Employee Geographic Distance and Project Delay in Global New Product Development

Abstract

Geographic dispersion is routine in new product development, yet it remains unclear whether employee geographic distance (EGD) slows project execution. We develop a coordination costs perspective in which employee geographic distance (EGD) is postulated to increase project delays because it raises attention allocation and information search costs. We test this framework by using a longitudinal employee–project–month panel from a large manufacturing firm that spans 9,729 observations across Europe, North America, and Asia. We find that greater geographic distance is associated with longer project delays, and that the effect is contingent on employee and project characteristics. The EGD–delay link is attenuated by employee familiarity and project similarity, consistent with lower attention allocation costs, and for specialist employees, consistent with differences in information search costs. We also find that the link is amplified for cross-functional geographic dispersion. Additional analyses document that the association between EGD and project delay is concentrated at later project gates and in high-risk or highly innovative projects. A difference-in-differences test around daylight-saving-time transitions indicates that temporal misalignment alone does not account for the EGD–delay relationship. Taken together, the results inform the literature on new product development, project management, and global work by demonstrating when geographic distance is most consequential for project delay.