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Reshoring, whether concerning back-reshoring or near-reshoring, is a quite recent phenomenon. Despite the economic and political interest of this topic, research questioning determinants and results of reshoring remain rare. The purpose of this paper is to help people to better understand reasons for reshoring.

To better understand reasons for near-reshoring, the authors conducted a study among 215 French firms in spring 2016, including 197 of them sourcing manufactured goods from China.

Near-reshoring is a recent but growing phenomenon: almost half of the companies sourcing in China chose over the past few years to near-reshore the supply of certain products initially purchased in China, and 10 per cent plan to do so soon. The authors determine main motives for near-reshoring and show that companies having reshored are very satisfied in terms of product quality, responsiveness between order and delivery, responsiveness between design and production, and in terms of total cost of ownership too.

Despite the economic and political interest of the topic of reshoring, research questioning determinants and results of reshoring remains rare.

Reshoring implies the reconfiguration of supply networks. Focusing on the specific case of a born-offshored firm that engaged in reshoring of outsourced activities, this study aims to analyse how initial key suppliers in the home country can help the reshoring firm to organize a new supply network.

The research is qualitative and based on a single exploratory case study. The data was collected from multiple primary and secondary sources, and using different techniques, such as in-depth interviews, direct observation and network pictures.

The study provides insights on how an initial key supplier can enable its customers’ reshoring in the home country. Specifically, the authors identify 10 roles played by a key supplier. The results also identify supply network formation as an essential component of the reshoring process.

This paper provides unique contributions. Firstly, it presents the specific and under-explored case of a born-offshored firm engaged in outsourced reshoring; secondly, it sheds light on the roles that key suppliers may play for the reshoring process; thirdly, it explores the formation of business relationships in the context of reshoring. In essence, the paper contributes to the reshoring literature, by stressing the importance of supply network formation in the reshoring process and by identifying the multiplicity of roles that key suppliers can play when implementing reshoring, and to the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) literature, by showing how relationships and networks develop during reshoring, a phenomenon so far understudied by IMP scholars.

The first aim of the chapter is to offer a characterization of back-reshoring as a possible step of the firm’s nonlinear internationalization process. The second aim is to review the empirical literature on back-reshoring and to complement it with the findings of an extensive data collection.

In this chapter we adopted an explorative approach building on both theoretical and empirical literature from the fields of international business and international operations Management. We also collected secondary data on back-reshoring decisions in order to define the magnitude of the investigated phenomenon and to offer a primary characterization.

Our findings confirm that, though it cannot be considered a generalized trend, back-reshoring is a very topical issue for international business scholars. It represents an autonomous phenomenon consistent with the idea of nonlinear internationalization process.

The chapter is based on cross-sectional data. Longitudinal research is required in order to address the proposed research questions and help understanding “how much” and what kind of manufacturing will be housed in western countries in the near future.

This is the first attempt to conceptualize back-reshoring as a possible step of the firms’ internationalization process. It is also the first chapter that summarizes and discusses the literature and empirical evidence on back-reshoring emerging from a wide range of countries.

This study aims to investigate the manufacturing reshoring decision-making content from an Eclectic Paradigm perspective.

Data were collected through a six-step systematic literature review on factors influencing manufacturing reshoring decision-making. The review is based on 100 peer-reviewed journal papers discussing reshoring decision-making contents published from 2009 to 2022.

In total, 80 decision factors were extracted and then categorized into resource-seeking (8%), market-seeking (11%), efficiency-seeking (41%) and strategic asset-seeking (16%) advantages. Additionally, 24% of these were identified as hybrid, which means that they were classified into multiple categories. Some decision factors were further identified as reshoring influencing factors (i.e. drivers, enablers and barriers).

Scholars need to consider what other theories can be used or developed to identify and evaluate the decision factors (determinants) of manufacturing reshoring as well as how currently adopted theory can be further advanced to create clearer and comprehensive theoretical frameworks.

This research underscores the importance of developing clearer and more comprehensive theoretical frameworks. For practitioners, understanding the multifaceted nature of decision factors could enhance strategic decision-making regarding reshoring initiatives.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the value and practicality of the Eclectic Paradigm in categorizing factors in manufacturing reshoring decision-making content and presents in-depth theoretical classifications. In addition, it bridges the gap between decision factors and influencing factors in the decision-making content research realm.

Antibiotics shortages have become an increasingly common problem in Europe because of several reasons, including the offshoring of the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for many of these products to low production cost countries, such as China and India. The problem has deteriorated because of the Covid-19 crisis that has put most global value chains (GVCs) under great stress. This situation has boosted extensive discussions among academics, practitioners and policymakers on possible changes to the configuration of GVCs. This paper aims to focus specifically on antibiotics supply chains from the perspective of a small country (Sweden), and analyse the pros and cons of backshoring and nearshoring alternatives, as a means to reduce drug shortages.

This work adopts a systemic perspective to capture the implications of reshoring for the different stakeholders involved in the antibiotics field. The present meso-analysis, focusing at the industry level, is based on multiple sources of primary data collected between 2014 and 2021, including participation in policy-related projects and interviews with over 100 representatives of key stakeholders in the antibiotics field.

This paper shows how reshoring can address the problems of drug shortages and reduce availability risk in antibiotics’ GVCs. However, the authors show that no simple and best solution exists because both alternatives of reshoring, i.e. backshoring and nearshoring, entail pros and cons for different stakeholders. The authors conclude with implications for policymakers and managers.

The analysis of pros and cons of both backshoring and nearshoring for various stakeholders offers relevant implications for research on operations and supply management, international business and economics/political science.

This paper looks at reshoring as a policy-driven decision and provides an innovative systemic perspective to analyse the implications for different stakeholders of two reshoring options concerning the antibiotics supply chain.

Research studies on offshoring and reshoring have predominantly focused on the home company, widely ignoring the offshored company in the host country. The host company's influence and contribution have been unseen. This research explores how the host company responds to the home company's location decisions to maintain the dyadic relationship.

An exploratory case study in China was conducted to examine the host company's response to reshoring. The case company has two Japanese parent companies that acted for the emergence of reshoring drivers. Primary and secondary data were collected and analysed through thematic analysis. The host company's response strategies to the home company's relocation decisions were identified and explored.

The findings reveal that four strategies, identified here as being cost control, market expansion, knowledge seeking and relationship bonding, were implemented by the host company. The importance of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and knowledge transfer is also emphasised within these strategies.

This research identified active and practical strategies conducted by the host company to maintain a cooperative relationship with the home company(ies). Instead of encountering a passive response from the host company, the home company may consider working with the host to overcome difficulties caused by emerging reshoring drivers and create an outcome beneficial to both.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to study manufacturing reshoring from the perspective of the host company. It provides a new perspective to understanding this phenomenon.

Using insights from the supply chain resilience perspective and the international business literature, this study aims to investigate the determinants of firms’ decisions to reshore manufacturing under the high levels of uncertainty brought about by the ongoing US–China trade war and COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposed conceptual framework is tested using survey data collected from 702 Taiwanese firms with manufacturing in China. The firms were drawn from a database compiled by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.

The results show that two supply chain factors (tariffs and supply chain completeness) and two non-location-bound factors (labor cost and material cost) are critical determinants of the decision to reshore under uncertainty.

This research elucidates and empirically validates several factors that influence the reshoring decision in uncertain environments. The findings provide valuable theoretical, practical and strategic insights into how firms should manage their value chains in the post-COVID-19 era.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between contingency factors and reshoring drivers in the US textile and apparel industry.

Secondary data on the reshoring drivers and contingency factors for 140 US textile and apparel companies are analyzed using analysis of proportions.

The findings show that total annual revenue is significantly related to the reshoring driver of skilled workforce. No significant relationships are present between reshoring drivers and the region of the world reshored from not the region of the USA from which a company operates. There is a significant relationship between market segment and the reshoring driver of manufacturing process. The US production category (reshored, FDI, or kept from offshoring) exhibits a significant relationship with sustainability-related and cost-related reshoring drivers. Quality is a significant driver for reshoring from 2010 to 2016, although decreasing as a reported reason over that time period.

Limitations include a focus on one industry, the lack of information to investigate the differences between companies making captive or outsourced reshoring decisions, and the use of companies who publicly announced reshoring.

This study outlines the relationships between contingency factors and reshoring drivers. The results provide companies with information about resources that will be demand (e.g. skilled workers) as well as policies and regulations that may be developed to address concerns such as sustainability.

This study adds to the limited number of studies on the relationships between contingency factors and reshoring drivers and contributes to the quantitative research on reshoring drivers.

Recently, many firms have reshored manufacturing activities back to their home countries to increase customer perceptions of product quality. However, there is no evidence that relocating production to the home country improves customer-perceived quality. This study intends to address this gap by assessing the variations between pre- and post-reshoring product quality, as perceived by domestic customers.

Data were collected through a questionnaire, which used the case of an Italian fashion brand that had reshored its manufacturing from Romania to Italy as the stimulus. Two analyses of the collected data (n = 399) were conducted, applying both 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design and partial least squares–structural equation modelling (PLS–SEM) multigroup analysis.

Reshoring increased the level of perceived product quality only for customers that both were aware of the firm's past offshoring decision and had high levels of affective ethnocentrism. For all other customers, no significant variations between pre- and post-reshoring product quality were observed.

This study challenges previous findings, revealing that only a minor share of customers perceived products to be of higher quality after reshoring.

Increasing customer-perceived quality may not be a sufficient motivation to select the reshoring strategy. In addition, when announcing reshoring strategies, producers should appeal to customers' emotions and not use rational arguments about objective product quality.

This is the first study to assess variations between pre- and post-reshoring customer-perceived quality and to identify factors that explain such variations.

Reshoring and insourcing decisions have been discussed in the popular press, yet coverage of these topics in the academic literature is limited. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it seeks to develop a more complete understanding of the underlying drivers of reshoring and insourcing decisions and their permutations. Second, it seeks to provide directions for future research to further analyze the link between drivers and outcomes of the reshoring and insourcing phenomena.

This research follows a conceptual approach guided by transaction cost economics (TCE) and organizational buying behavior (OBB) theories. First, a theoretical framework of reshoring and insourcing decisions is developed. Next a comprehensive summary of reshoring and insourcing drivers is evaluated, yielding an in-depth discussion of future research directions (FRDs).

The analysis demonstrates that the framework can be utilized to explain recent insourcing and reshoring changes of firms and to help dismantle the external and organizational challenges associated with reshoring and insourcing decision making.

Three FRDs are presented in the light of TCE and OBB. A fourth research direction highlights additional contextual factors outside the scope of these two theoretical lenses. These four research directions yield insightful implications for scholars and contribute to the emerging reshoring and insourcing literature.

The full array of potential reshoring and insourcing permutations are structured to allow for an elaboration of their respective drivers. Moreover, enablers and obstacles in implementing the multitude of combined reshoring and insourcing decisions are highlighted and summarized as contextual variables.

The concluding conceptual framework guides the evaluation of the reshoring and insourcing driver-outcome relationship across various value creation tasks and provides guidance to scholars and managers alike.