Roderich, thank you for your reply. I have to admit I probably did simplify my example too much when posting to the list ;-). I solved the problem my original question was addressing: Somewhere in the process of creating the executable I copied the modules to "site/lib/my_project/" forgetting all about it and then wondering why there would be a difference between the local perl program and the creation of the pp executable (which uses "site/lib/my_project" since it's in @INC). Haha. Good laugh! Sorry for bugging you and everybody else.
Nele