Reshoring: Governance, knowledge, and capabilities

An increasingly uncertain global landscape is inducing firms to reconsider some of their previous location decisions. Among the relocation options, reshoring has emerged as a relevant strategy to cope with changing environmental conditions and strategic needs. A key, yet underexplored, factor in reshoring is how governance decisions, specifically whether activities are managed in-house or outsourced in the host and home country, shape the knowledge transfer processes triggered by relocation. To address this, we adopt a knowledge-based approach and develop a typology of four reshoring types based on governance mode, each characterized by a distinct knowledge transfer process: backward, brokered, inward, and outward knowledge transfer. Further, we build on this to elucidate the knowledge strategies and capabilities underlying each type of reshoring. The study advances reshoring research by showing how different governance configurations generate distinct knowledge transfer processes and their inherent dynamics. It also contributes to knowledge transfer literature by contextualizing transfer processes within reshoring, a context characterized by high organizational change, and by showing how governance structures influence the nature and strategic outcomes of knowledge strategies, supported by specific capabilities.