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Abstract Concept screening is one of the gatekeepers of innovation process and thus is considered a vital component of engineering design. Yet, we know very little about how decisions are made during concept screening or the factors that inform these decisions. This is due, in part, to the fact that most prior work on concept screening in engineering design has focused on student populations or on industry professionals in an experimental setting which is not indicative of the risks and consequences professionals face in their daily work—particularly when it comes to innovative design process. Thus, the current study was developed to identify how the environmental settings (i.e., experimental versus naturalistic) and the role of the professionals in the design process (i.e., idea generators versus executives) impacts the criteria used to screen design ideas. Two studies were conducted including a workshop study with 45 design professionals from two companies in an experimental setting and a participatory ethnographic study with seven design professionals from a small electromechanical company in a naturalistic setting. The results showed stark differences in the criteria used to screen ideas between naturalistic and experimental practices and between idea generators and company executives. In addition, the results showed differences in the factors considered during concept screening between naturalistic and experimental environments. These results are used to identify opportunities for tools and methods that encourage the consideration of creative ideas in the engineering design industry and encourage appropriate risk-taking in engineering design. 

High globalization in the world today results in the involvement of multi-discipline, multi-cultural teams, as well as the entrance of more economic powers in the market. Effective innovation strategies are critical if emerging markets plan to become economic players in this increasingly connected global market. The current work compares the design processes of designers from emerging and established markets to understand how design methods are applied across culture. Specifically, the design decisions of designers from Morocco, one of the four leading economic power in Africa, and the U.S. are investigated. Concept generation and selection are the focus of the current study as they are critical steps in the design process that can determine project outcomes. Previous studies have identified three factors, ownership bias, gender, and idea goodness as influential during concept selection. The effect of these three factors on designers in the United States is well established. The current study expands upon previous findings to examine the influence of these factors across two cultures — U.S. and Morocco. The results of this study, although preliminary, found that U.S. students had a higher idea fluency than Morocco students. It also found a significant difference in idea fluency between genders in the U.S. but not in Morocco. In addition, it was found that overall, participants exhibited ownership bias toward ideas with high goodness.