Manufacturing Reshoring Explained: An Interpretative Framework of Ten Years of Research

The aim of this paper is to analyze and classify research that has been conducted on manufacturing reshoring, i.e., the decision to bring back to the home country production activities earlier offshored, independently of the governance mode (insourcing vs. outsourcing). Literature reviews proposed until now usually paid almost exclusive attention to motivations driving this phenomenon. This paper offers a broader and more comprehensive examination of the extant knowledge of manufactiring reshoring and identifies the main unresolved issues and knowledge gaps, which future research should investigate. Moreover, the purpose of the paper is to provide avenues for future research and highlight the distinct value of studying manufacturing reshoring either per se or in combination with other constructs of the international business tradition. A set of 49 carefully selected articles on manufacturing reshoring published in international journals or books indexed on Scopus in the last 10 years is systematically analyzed based on the “5 Ws and 1H” (Who-What-Where-When-Why and How) set of questions. Our work shows a certain convergence among authors regarding what reshoring is, what its key features and motivations are. In contrast, other related aspects, such as the decision making and implementation processes, are comparatively less understood.