Reshoring drivers and barriers in the Swedish manufacturing industry

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore reshoring drivers and barriers from a Swedish manufacturing perspective. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a case study, including four Swedish manufacturing companies, with focus on drivers and barriers from the context of the Swedish manufacturing industry. A literature review of previously established drivers and barriers is used to map out the empirical findings and thereby identify potential gaps between the current body of literature and drivers and barriers from a Swedish manufacturing context. Findings The findings of the study suggest that quality issues continue to be one of the strongest reshoring drivers. Except for product quality, quality is also connected to host country’s infrastructure, communication and service. The supply chain perspective is a source of several drivers and is identified as a perspective often overlooked in offshoring decisions. Barriers related to firm specifics were more elaborately discussed by the companies, especially concerning calculation of location decision and the need to invest in resources, which allows for a higher level of capacity at the home country facility. Research limitations/implications The study develops a structured table of reshoring drivers and barriers which can serve as a base for future research. Future research on the calculation of location decisions is deemed as a crucial step to further understand reshoring and aid companies in the decision-making process. Practical implications The drivers and barriers identified in the study can give practitioners insight into reshoring from the perspective of the Swedish manufacturing industry and thus aid in future manufacturing location decisions. The table of drivers and barriers can also be important to understand how Sweden can strengthen its competitive advantage and motivate more companies to reshore manufacturing. Originality/value This is one of only few papers from the Nordic countries and also one of few case studies examining reshoring in manufacturing companies.

What do we want to know about reshoring? Towards a comprehensive framework based on a meta-synthesis

“…For example, insufficient quality at the offshore site is an offshoring outcome, but it is also a main driver of reshoring (Kinkel and Maloca 2009;Johansson and Olhager 2018b). This is true in survey studies as well as in several of the studied papers (Joubioux and Vanpoucke 2016;Gray et al 2017;Baraldi et al 2018;Di Mauro et al 2018;Engström et al 2018;Sayem et al 2018). One question that has received quite a lot of attention is whether reshoring is reflecting a strategy change or if it is a correction of a previous offshoring mistake, i.e.…”

“…The framework is structured in a graphical way that makes it intuitively easy to follow, so to Baraldi et al 2018). In general, we find evidence that firms find it hard to make correct calculations to base the offshoring or reshoring decision on (Gray et al 2017;Engström et al 2018). However, experience from previous offshoring improves the assessment of cost and performance implications, thus implying that there is a positive learning effect.…”

“…Re-outsourcing activities to the same supplier in the future could be problematic because of the damaged trust between partners (Engström et al 2018;Nujen et al 2018b).…”

“…Surprisingly, also articles with a focus far away from the preparation phase mention details that help in structuring its characteristics. Among others, some of the mentioned elements are the development of in-house training programs (Gylling et al 2015), improving efficiency and freeing space (Engström et al 2018), and of course organizational readiness (Nujen and Halse 2017;Nujen et al 2018a, b). Naturally, after having found evidence of the reshoring preparation phase, we expected to find information also about the offshoring preparation.…”

Principles of reshoring development in luxury goods sector1

“…Most of the reshoring studies have concentrated on activities within the value chain or the motives of manufacturing transfer [Bals et al, 2016;Zhai et al, 2016]. Some other studies distinguish the drivers and barriers experienced during the process of reshoring [see, e.g., Engström et al, 2018aEngström et al, , 2018b. Several frameworks classify and analyze reshoring drivers [see, e.g., Stentoft et al, 2016;Benstead et al, 2017;Wiesmann et al, 2017;Barbieri et al, 2018].…”