The Adoption Challenge: An Analysis of Research Methods in JIBS

This study introduces the concepts of translational distance and complexity distance to explain challenges to adoption of research methods in JIBS. We examine three analytical techniques and data collection approaches: (1) Heckman models, (2) ethnographic studies, and (3) data collection equivalence procedures in survey-based research. We note that progress has been made to reduce translational and complexity distance for analytical techniques. However, concerns remain for data collection equivalence and ethnography as IB scholars are using increasingly advanced analytical techniques on less credible data

A multidisciplinary study of manufacturing reshoring: regional empirical evidences in Veneto, California and the Midlands

In the last decade, many events occurred that shaped the modus operandi of western firms. Since the backlashes of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) the western economies have experienced the rise of populism and nationalist governments (e.g. 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and Brexit Referendum) and, at the same time, a restructuration of the Global Value Chains (GVCs) towards a more macro regional perspective (i.e. Europe, East-Asia, North America). Further, the recent diplomatic disputes between United States and China have reshuffled the international operations of firms with an unprecedented uncertainty. Lastly, the recent pandemic crisis highlighted the crucial role of supply chain and how their smoothness operation are essential to face emergency situation, leaving room for a possible radical restructuration of them in the near future towards a more domestic focus (UNCTAD, 2020). As a consequence of these events and the increasing importance of technology for collecting and analysing data, firms are often questioning the location decisions of their daily operations. One option for firms’ location decisions is to reorient their investments into their home country by adopting a manufacturing reshoring strategy. Manufacturing reshoring strategies have been predominately studied by the discipline of Supply Chain Management, although it is an intrinsic choice of location decision whereby concepts of Economic Geography (EG) and International Business (IB) disciplines come into play. Following on from this important shortcoming of the academic literature, this thesis investigates the manufacturing reshoring strategies by adopting the framework of the Global Value Chains (GVCs) as a bridge between EG and IB. More specifically, the Internalization Theory of IB and the Agglomeration Theory of EG are enacted to explore the operationalization of manufacturing reshoring strategies . To narrow down the boundaries of the unit of analysis, the region as administrative territory is considered (i.e. Veneto in Italy, Midlands in United Kingdom and California in United States). Although part of a Country, each region differs from its Country in terms of knowledge base, industrial system and institutional stakeholders. In this thesis, manufacturing reshoring is envisaged in three not mutually exclusive strategies : (i) from foreign outsourcing to domestic outsourcing, (ii) from offshoring to onshoring, (iii) from foreign outsourcing to onshoring, and (iv) from offshoring to domestic outsourcing. To test these strategies , a proxy was used which provides three mutually exclusive manufacturing reshoring modalities : (i) Onshoring; (ii) Insourcing; and (iii) Full. To understand the rationale behind these modalities, a manufacturing reshoring kite is presented whereby factors extrapolated by the relevant literature have been itemized according to their disciplines. The importance of each factor for adopting a manufacturing reshoring strategy is captured through a web-based questionnaire addressed to manufacturing firms established in the regions of Veneto, Midlands and California, in addition to interviews with CEOs and institutional stakeholders. The relevance of each factors has been tested first by an Heckman model, and then with a qualitative analysis. Results suggest that factors related to efficiency seeking (i.e. investment in automation, digitalization of the production process, partnership with key suppliers, proximity with final market and favourable public policies) are statistically significant for adopting a full reshoring modality. This reveals the indirect importance of a wealthy local supplier system that is able to support the manufacturing reshoring strategy adopted by the firm. Moreover, for adopting a manufacturing reshoring strategy the firm is not the only actor in play as institutional actors should promote a systemic network to facilitate the implementation of the above strategy through ad-hoc university level programs and funding support for a holistic and sustainable long-term regional development. To conclude, for adopting a successful manufacturing reshoring strategy, a firm cannot operate alone but needs a local system of actors ready to support its operations

A Bottom-up Approach to Manufacturing Reshoring Strategies:A comparative study

As a new decade starts, it might be timely to pause and reflect on how past trends and events are deciding the present and will shape the future business environment and strategies. Since the watershed moment of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, the global economy has faced as many challenges as opportunities: a more critical attitude towards globalisation; a renewed focus on the sources of productivity; a stronger commitment to manufacturing and entrepreneurship; a greater priority on technological exploration and adoption; and a tentative move towards greening the economy and society. In this tumultuous environment, firms have had to find new partners, to reassess their market position, to revise their location strategies and to reorganize their Global Value Chains (GVCs)Part of this GVCs reorganization towards shorter and closer value chains is referred to as 'manufacturing reshoring’ and it describes firms’ decision to swap oversees production for domestic production (either via domestic investment or by choosing domestic suppliers). The topic of “reshoring” has attracted the interest of many scholars from different disciplines such as Supply Chain Management, International Business (IB) and Economic Geography (EG). Drawing upon the open dialogue between scholar in the IB and EG, this paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by leveraging the bottom-up logic intrinsic to the GVCs literatures. The bottom-up approach has been extensively applied to study territorial upgrading in least developed host economies, but only very recently, it has been used to understand firms’ location choices in advanced economies.In this work, we focus on firms’ reshoring strategies at the sub-national level assuming that firms are place-aware when they consider location choices aligned with reshoring, to the extent that they weight Knowledge-, Industry 4.0-, and Suppliers Network seeking factors.From the literature review, we aim to address two new research questions:1. Which factors influence a manufacturing reshoring strategy at a sub-national (i.e. regional) level?2. To what extent manufacturing reshoring strategies have brought value-added in the sub-national region?To answer these research questions, a comparative cross-country analysis is carried out across three different regions: the Midlands (in the United Kingdom), Veneto (in Italy), and California (in the United States). Methodologically, we use primary data collected with a web-based survey between April 2018 and March 2019. We obtained 276 usable responses across the three regions. We adopt a Multinomial Logit Model (MLM) to examine the choice of manufacturing reshoring strategies such as (i) in-house reshoring, (ii) domestic reshoring, (iii) in-house & domestic reshoring, (iv) no reshoring across our three regions.Our findings show the following: first, Industry 4.0 seeking factors influence the adoption of in-house & domestic reshoring, confirming that manufacturing reshoring brings value-added to the region; second, firms are shortening their VC to create more value-added in the domestic manufacturing activity. Finally, firms in the Midlands and California are found to be better positioned to adopt a reshoring strategy that leverages Industry 4.0 factors than firms in Veneto