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Manufacturing offshoring has received substantial attention within international business studies that have explored where activities are located and how they are governed. However, recent examples of manufacturing relocation to the home country/region have put the advantages of offshoring under scrutiny, since the location of production activities in high-cost countries may have positive impacts in terms of innovation and marketing opportunities. Despite the growing interest in offshoring and “relocations of second degree,” there is a lack of knowledge on the alternative strategies firms may implement after offshoring. This chapter aims to propose a comprehensive framework to summarize and classify the multiple alternatives firms may implement after the initial relocation abroad of manufacturing activities. Based on an extensive literature review and a comparative analysis of Italian case studies, the chapter suggests theoretical advancement in the theory of location of business activities, offering multiple post-offshoring strategic options that may be implemented individually or in combination. In so doing, the analysis also stresses the variety of strategic paths and the complexity of choices concerning manufacturing location, emphasizing reshoring as a nuanced phenomenon and exploring how domestic and foreign locations can complement each other and be mutually reinforcing.

Defined as local manufacturing systems, industrial districts have been recognized as particularly important for the location of firms’ manufacturing activities intertwined with innovation processes. The debate on the internationalization of production has stressed the low value related to manufacturing within value chain activities (smile framework), emphasizing the need to focus on high value-added activities (R&D or marketing). Following multinational enterprises’ internationalization strategies, also district firms have progressively offshored their production phases in the past years. However, recent studies focused on backshoring have revamped the attention on the domestic control of production for firms’ competitiveness. This chapter explores district firms’ location choices for manufacturing activities between local and global. Based on an empirical analysis of about 260 Italian district firms specialized in mechanics, furniture, and fashion and supported by a case study investigation, our results show that despite district internationalization processes, a non-negligible amount of firms still carry out – in-house or through outsourcing – production activities at district level. Larger firms couple district production and long-term upstream outsourced internationalization activities. The district system confirms its role of pooling specialized competences and product know-how, being decisive for firms’ innovation and responsiveness to national and international markets. Backshoring, instead, is a very limited phenomenon and linked to upgrading strategies.