Institutional and strategic operations perspectives on manufacturing reshoring

This research examines manufacturing reshoring from institutional, strategic and operations management perspectives. The multi-disciplinary approach is motivated by the active involvement of institutions in promoting reshoring activity, suggesting institutional factors can be significant in combination with the more traditional drivers of location decision considered in strategic and operations management. The synthesis of several literature domains enables a broader conceptualisation of the dynamics of reshoring. Anecdotal evidence of reshoring activity within industry has not been well evidenced in the extant literature. In this study, we consider emerging data-sets from the UK and France as they represent major developed-world manufacturing nations that have witnessed significant offshoring in recent decades, and where reshoring is now being actively promoted.