Investigating the influence of network-manufacturing capabilities to the phenomenon of reshoring : an insight from three case studies

After a steady growth in global offshoring activities, it appears now a marked flow in the opposite direction with both a partial and full reversal of offshoring decisions. Research on reshoring put less stresses on the operation of dispersed facilities of an intra-firm network manufacturing. The purpose of this paper is to address the relevance of strategic capabilities for the operation of international manufacturing to the reshoring decision. The paper reports on retrospective studies of three European based companies, which have had recent reshoring experience. We adopt qualitative research using a case-based methodology that includes multiple in-depth interviews based on three companies. The study demonstrates that managerial challenges in the operation of dispersed facilities have played an important role in the reshoring decision. The findings allow understanding how the capability dimensions, "thriftiness" and "learning" being the most important, connect with the phenomenon of reshoring.