Repatriation or Reshoring of Manufacturing to the U.S. and UK: Dynamics and Global Production Networks or from Here to There and Back Again

The paper analyzes the manufacturing reshoring phenomenon in USA and UK. Results show that consumer driven sectors like electronics, apparel, computer, appliances are more interested by this strategic decision since the relevance of competitive issues like delivery time, customization, quality and flexibility. Authors note that relocation decisions are always taken on the base of more than one factor, but in nearly all of them the collected qualitative and quantitative drivers coexist. (e.g. rising labor cost, currency variation, longer lead times, quality, warranty, and intellectual property risk). It is worthwhile to note that the growing patriotism/nationalism is considered an important driver behind reshoring in both analyzed countries. In terms of number of decisions, authors declare 225 evidences in USA (data from Reshoring Initiative) while in UK the public available databank (ReshoreUK) includes only 13 instances, even if there were other widespread anecdotal evidences.