Exploring the Consequences of Reshoring: A step back or forward for firms´ competitiveness?

In recent years, "reshoring" – the process by which companies move activities that were previously moved to foreign countries back to their home country – has attracted great interest in government, academia, and business alike. Today, we, therefore, know more and more about why companies perform reshoring.

However, we know considerably less about how reshoring affects companies and their local network´s competitiveness as they bring back activities.Studying the effects of reshoring is also very timely as the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered much discussion in media, government, academy both in Sweden and the EU on potential solutions to disruption problems in global supply chains (e.g., interruption of transportations between countries, stalled production, unfulfilled orders, slower shipments, stock shortages).Through comparative qualitative case studies of reshoring, followed-up by a survey based on the results of the case study, this project aims to contribute to the understanding of barriers and possibilities of reshoring and most important its consequences.

The results of the project are believed to have interesting implications for both authorities and companies that intend to move to their home country operations from abroad.

The data collection and analysis will be carried out by an experienced team of researchers at Uppsala university over a period of three years.