Insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring

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Insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and

nearshoring

Interchangeable terms or unique concepts? An investigation

on their characteristics, drivers, barriers, and influencing

factors

Andrei-Dan Georgia

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

MSc Supply Chain Management

a.d.georgia@student.rug.nl

S3466582

Supervisor: Dr. Kirstin Scholten

Co-assessor: Dr. ir. Paul Buijs

Word count: 11937

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Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the concepts of insourcing,

reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring are interchangeable terms, or are unique in the sense that they are differentiated based on several factors. This is done to provide guidance for future research to further address these underexplored topics.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper adopts a systematic literature review

methodology. From the current literature, 66 articles were picked for investigation and synthesizing based on a specific list of inclusion/exclusion criteria.

Findings: It was found that the concepts are unique through their characteristics. However,

the drivers, barriers and contingency factors as presented within the literature are not sufficient in differentiating the concepts, since these factors are equally relevant across all concepts.

Practical implications: Managers do not need to concern themselves with the different

terminologies presented for each concept. Instead, managers can focus on the drivers, barriers and contingency factors that may influence their decision in adopting either of the concepts.

Originality/Contribution: This study contributed to the existing literature by highlighting

what is currently known on four underexplored topics. By considering several factors, a more thorough investigation was made on explaining the similarities and differences of the

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1. Introduction

Over the past decades, outsourcing and offshoring organizational activities and operations has been widely popular (Arvanitis, Bolli, & Stucki, 2017; Di Mauro, Fratocchi, Orzes, & Sartor, 2018; Pearce, 2014; Munjal, Requejo, & Kundu, 2019; Buckley, & Munjal, 2017). However, extant literature has shifted to address insourcing, or reintegration, as an equally important sourcing strategy (Hartman, Ogden, Wirthlin, & Hazen, 2017; Drauz, 2014; Di Mauro et al., 2018; Bals, Kirchoff, & Foerstl, 2016), to counter the hidden costs and pitfalls pertaining outsourcing strategies. This does not mean that outsourcing strategies are no longer considered relevant or are no longer conducted. Several studies show that only a small percentage (less than 10% in European countries and 20% in the U.S.) decide to start conducting operations/activities in-house as a means of a corrective decision based on potential outsourcing failures (Dachs, Kinkel, Jager, & Palcic, 2019; Zhai, Sun, & Zhang, 2016), while the rest continue to outsource as normal. One of the reasons for these low percentages of insourcing, however, is that the concept itself is emergent, and much ambiguity remains to be clarified on its key characteristics, implications, motivations, challenges and influencing factors (Foerstl, Kirchoff, & Bals, 2016; Benstead, Stevenson, & Hendry, 2017).

Insourcing, in simple terms, is the relocation of operations and/or activities back from a given outside partner (Bals et al., 2016). Given that this is a generally broad view on the concept, several authors have started to study the means by which organizations bring back operations/activities to be conducted in-house, and different terms such as back-shoring (Di Mauro et al., 2018; Dachs et al., 2019), reshoring (Ellram, Tate, & Petersen, 2013; Bals et al., 2016; Benstead, Stevenson, & Hendry, 2017), and nearshoring (Hartman et al., 2017; Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019) started to surface.

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interchangeable and much that can be applied to one concept can be transferred just as easily to another (Bals et al., 2016; Foerstl et al., 2016; Hartman et al., 2017a)

Because of these questions, the terms of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring may be used imprecisely and not according to their true intentions. Indeed, not understanding in totality the differences between these concepts leads to confusion and affects the understanding on the motivators and challenges of the practices of conducting operations/activities in-house (Fratocchi, Di Mauro, Barbieri, Nassimbeni, & Zanoni, 2014). Furthermore, without a proper understanding on the concepts, there is the risk that future research will not be fully inclusive and important aspects (i.e. drivers, challenges, characteristics and influencing factors) might be omitted, potentially negatively affecting managerial decision-making in the long run (Foerstl et al., 2016).

The purpose of this paper, therefore, is twofold: first, it aims to provide a clear understanding, as well as highlighting the distinctions between the concepts of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearback-shoring, by observing what is currently known within the current literature on these topics. In order to do so, the characteristics, motivators (or drivers), challenges (or barriers) and the influencing factors (also known as contingency factors) of all concepts must be highlighted and contrasted. The aim of this paper can, therefore, be summarized through the following research question:

RQ: How are the topics of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring presented and differentiated within the current literature, based on their characteristics, drivers, barriers and possible contingency (or influencing) factors?

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2. Theoretical background – defining the concepts

Insourcing, in a highly general way, is defined as the “reversal of outsourcing decisions” (Bals et al., 2016, p. 103).To offer a more comprehensive view, Cabral, Quelin, & Maia (2014) define insourcing as: “the decision to reincorporate a given activity within a company that had formerly been transferred to an external supplier” (Cabral et al., 2014, p. 366). Following these definitions, several authors examined the practice of reintegrating operations/activities in-house (Cabral et al., 2014; Arvanitis et al., 2017; Smite, Wohlin, Aurum, Jabangwe, & Numminen, 2013) and discovered that the concepts of reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring share some similarities, alongside insourcing, but are also subject to specific characteristics. Concretely, studies such as the ones conducted by Hartman et al. (2017b), Foerstl et al. (2016), Bals et al. (2016), Fratocchi et al. (2014) and Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod (2019) started to differentiate the concepts based on three key characteristics: location, ownership mode and necessity.

Location refers to the place in which an organization wants to conduct operations/activities in-house (Fratocchi et al., 2014; Foerstl et al., 2016; Hartman et al., 2017b; Ancarani, Di Mauro, & Mascali, 2019). According to Bals et al. (2016) and Hartman et al. (2017b), the location decision is not as relevant when addressing insourcing, compared to the other concepts, since insourcing looks at the decision to conduct operations/activities in-house, rather than where exactly this should be done. The ownership mode, the second characteristic, refers to whether the insourcing process is to be conducted in wholly owned facilities of an organization or in outsourced facilities (i.e. external partners) (Bals et al., 2016; Foerstl et al., 2016; Benstead et al., 2017). Studies such as the ones conducted by Bals et al. (2016), Foerstl et al. (2016), Hartman et al. (2017b), Benstead et al. (2017) and Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod (2019) argue that insourcing can take into account the ownership mode (i.e. can be both wholly owned facilities or outsourced ones), while the other concepts look more to the process of moving offshored operations/activities towards the domestic country, irrespective of the ownership of the facilities.

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of adopting one of the concepts, instead focusing on its strategic implication (Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019), yet the main motivations still remains to reduce the dependency of external offshored partners or used partially to combine the benefits of both insourcing and outsourcing. Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of the concepts based on their definitions provided by the above-mentioned authors. However, in order to understand the table, the definitions per concept must first be highlighted, as done with the concept of insourcing.

Reshoring is considered a process by which: “a corporation relocates all or part of valuable activities conducted abroad to the home country” (Zhai et al., 2016, p. 63). This provided definition is shared among several authors regarding reshoring within the literature, the authors looking at reshoring as purely being a location-based decision for organizations to bring back their operations/activities from abroad (Wiesmann et al., 2017; Ellram et al., 2013; Bailey, & De Propris, 2014; Brandon-Jones, Dutordoir, Neto, & Squire, 2017). However, going into this process of reshoring in greater detail, current literature further distinguished reshoring into back-shoring (Kinkel, & maloca, 2009; Dachs, Kinkel, Jager, & Palcic, 2019; Arlbjorn, & Mikkelsen, 2014; Ancarani et al., 2019; Stentoft, Olhager, Heikkila, & Thoms, 2016; Di Mauro, Fratocchi, Orzes, & Sartor, 2018) and nearshoring (Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019; Ancarani, Di Mauro, Fratocchi, & Orzes, 2015; Hartman et al., 2017b).

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Insourcing Reshoring Back-shoring Nearshoring

1. Location Does not

consider the location – operations/activit ies are to be conducted in-house, wherever Considers the location – bringing back operations/activit ies, be it in the domestic country or close to it Considers the location – bringing back operations/activit ies specifically in

the home country

Considers the location – bringing back operations/activit ies closer to the home country 2. Ownership Considers ownership mode (must specifically be wholly owned) Does not consider ownership mode (can be wholly owned or third parties) Does not consider ownership mode (can be wholly owned or third parties) Does not consider ownership mode (can be wholly owned or third parties) 3. Necessity (implication) To counter the negative aspects coming from external partners To counter the negative aspects coming from external partners, especially offshored ones To counter the negative aspects coming from external partners, especially offshored ones Can be used as an intermediate strategy as to not bring all operations/activit ies back at once and altogether

Table 1. Main characteristics of the concepts

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3. Methodology

In order to answer the proposed research question, this paper adopts a systematic literature review methodology. Systematic literature reviews are used in discovering the underlying issues presented in the current literature, with the intention to synthesize scientific papers in order to answer specific research questions on existing, yet underexplored topics (Wilding, & Wagner, 2014; Rew, 2011). In order to do so, one must be rigorous and transparent in highlighting the steps of selecting, scanning and analyzing papers found within the literature (Tranfield, Denyer, & Smart, 2003). Furthermore, Seuring, & Gold (2012) underline the idea, based on the earlier work of Meredith (1993), that the purpose of a comprehensive literature review is to bring together scattered pieces of knowledge from the current literature so that new directions are provided for future research to follow. Therefore, the reason for opting for a systematic literature review in this study is to provide a comprehensive view on an underexplored area (fitting under the considerations of Meredith (1993)) – namely, the characteristics, definitions, determinants and limitations of insourcing and its closely related concepts. Drawing inspiration from the methodological approach provided by Tukamuhabwa, Stevenson, Busby, & Zorzini (2015) in their research, the following steps (the search for articles, the screening process ant the coding process) have been considered in acquiring the needed data in order to address the topic and answer the proposed research question.

3.1. Step 1 – Searching for articles

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literature reviews, the fact that they do not include peer-reviewed papers meant that they were excluded from this study.

When searching for articles, only journals pertaining from the business environment were considered. This meant that, from the start, any articles that would stem from journals from the medical or law fields were omitted. Four such articles were stemming from the medical environment, and thus were excluded (now 208). Moreover, while checking the journals from the business environment, four articles stemming from them had restricted access and would need permission from their respective owners to be used. Given that this would have been a time-consuming process without a guarantee that said articles would become available after contacting the authors, they were excluded from the total list of articles (now 204). Lastly, one important aspect considered when searching for articles was the language in which they were written. Due to the fact that translating non-English articles would not fully guarantee legitimacy, and the fact that the process would have taken a considerable amount of time, they were excluded. Three of such articles on insourcing were discovered and excluded (now 201), since one was written in Spanish and two in Norwegian. After cross-referencing the articles across all platforms used, the total number of articles was reduced to 51 (due to the elimination of duplicates across the databases).

Table 2 highlights the inclusion/exclusion criteria mentioned above, while also presenting the reasoning behind said criteria. Only after the above-mentioned inclusion/exclusion criteria were respected were the articles checked for their content, starting with their titles and keywords and ending with their main bodies, findings and implications, but this is explained in greater detail in the next step (Step 2).

Inclusion criteria Exclusion criteria Reason When?

Peer-reviewed articles Any non-peer-reviewed articles (theses, MSc and PhD dissertations, articles from websites other than those proposed,

organizational reports, and so on).

Peer-reviewed articles better ensure the quality of information

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Articles written in English Articles written in any other language

Focusing on articles written in English reduces the risk of faulty

translations and eases the analyzing

Step 1

Articles from journals pertaining to the business environment

Articles from journals pertaining to other environments (e.g. law, medical)

Searching for articles from different environments (such as medical journals) is outside the scope of this study

Step 1

Accessible articles Articles with no or restricted access

Articles that required permission from their respective authors to be read would take too much time to acquire and would not have a guarantee that they will be provided

Step 1

Articles that showed that either insourcing,

reshoring, nearshoring and back-shoring would be the (or one of the) main theme(s)

Articles that only briefly mention one of the notions and do not present

theoretical and/or practical implications.

Articles that only briefly mention (i.e. once) one of the notions would not add value nor be sufficient in answering the research question

Step 2

Table 2. Inclusion and exclusion criteria

3.2. Step 2 – The screening process

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articles discovered. Given the large amount of references found among papers, this process was repeated, bringing forth 6 new articles that were previously overlooked and were fitting with the inclusion criteria. Thus, the total number of articles after adding the references reached 76.

The next step of the screening process was to observe the findings of the articles and what contributions (if any) regarding the concepts of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring were provided. By doing so, it was discovered that a number of 10 articles were found to not bring significant practical and/or theoretical contributions to the field of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and/or nearshoring. This was observed to happen more often when articles addressing sourcing and location strategies would ultimately discuss outsourcing practices in depth, while considerably ignoring insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring or nearback-shoring initiatives. Given that this was an important factor when including/excluding articles (see row 5 of Table 1), these 10 articles were subtracted, thus leading to the total number of 66 articles. At this point the researcher of this paper considered that a sufficiently large number of articles were found and would suffice in answering the research question. Figure 1 provides an illustration of the screening process. Next, the codification process is discussed (Step 3).

Figure 1. The reviewing process of the articles

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3.3. Step 3 – Coding and analysis

The 66 researched papers were coded on a number of aspects: country in which organizations researched within the articles operate (European, US, or other regions), the industry in which said organizations operate (manufacturing or non-manufacturing), the characteristics of the concepts (i.e. location, ownership and necessity) as presented within the literature, the drivers (or motivators) of conducting operations/activities in-house, the barriers (or challenges) that come with insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and/or nearshoring, and the influencing factors that might differentiate the concepts. For clarification reasons, drivers are considered as those factors that stimulate organizations to observe the benefits of doing operations/activities in-house and, based on these observations, to reverse outsourcing/offshoring decisions (Benstead et al., 2017; Bals et al., 2016; Foerstl et al., 2016). The barriers, on the other hand, represent the challenges that may inhibit the ability to insource, reshore, back-shore or nearshore. Of course, the first stage was to observe how the concepts are generally presented, what definitions are given to them and what attributes characterize them. In case an article presented a definition of a concept that was overlapping with a different concept, then the first definition would still be considered the one standing out, while the second one would be discarded.

When looking at the characteristics, the articles were searched for their insights on either of the concepts. In other words, if an article would underline defining characteristics (based on their interpretation) on either of the concepts, then they would be considered. This code was split into three sub-categories accordingly. While the last sub-category (necessity) can be interpreted also as the reasoning behind insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring or nearshoring, it changes based on the values and strategy that an organization follows.

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contingency factor, given that each industry has designated suppliers and customers. Next, the product category was looked at, given that some products may require special emphasis on quality and less on, for example, costs. Finally, the articles were searched for discussions on short-term gains vs. long-term gains on adopting either of the concepts. These factors were chosen because of their relevance within the literature and the fact that they are highly mentioned in studies bringing forth new empirical evidence. For example, articles addressing cases will almost always provide basic information on the studied organizations, such as their size and financial position. The choosing of these above-mentioned factors was inspired predominantly by the studies of Benstead et al. (2017) and Moore, Rothenberg, & Moser (2018).

Based on this, the coding continued with the drivers and barriers to insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearback-shoring. First, the articles were checked to observe any benefits that would stem from adopting either of the concepts. A number of such benefits were discovered and were considered lower-level drivers. These were then grouped under six main drivers, meaning that each sub-driver would fall under one of the six main ones accordingly. For example, the sub-drivers ‘labour cost’ and ‘transportation/logistics cost’ were categorized under the main ‘cost-related’ driver, while ‘product quality’ and ‘process quality’ would fall under the main ‘quality’ driver, and so on.

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4. Descriptive analysis

While the topic of insourcing is emergent, the earliest article included in this research stems from as early as 2005, provided by Caputo and Palumbo. In their work, the authors acknowledge the motivators for companies to outsource production to lower-tech countries to reduce costs, yet suggest insourcing practices since customer requirements shifted to include more quality and innovation when it comes to the textile industry, often associated with high-tech countries (Caputo, & Palumbo, 2005). Following the idea of reconsidering activities to be done in-house by Caputo and Palumbo (2005) as a means to improve quality and meet demanding customer requirements, articles exploring the topic of insourcing became more evident in 2009, with a considerable growth in the number of articles over the past decade. In this research, the majority of articles discussing insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring were published between the timeframe of 2013 and 2019, showing the growth in popularity and the need to address insourcing and the notions surrounding it as a relevant topic for both theorists and practitioners. Figure 2 below shows the number of articles published within the years and that were used in this research. Figure 3 gives a bit more detail and shows how many articles address each concept per year. It should be noted that some articles (i.e. Hartman et al., 2017b; Bals et al., 2016) talk about more than one concept, so there should be no surprise if the figures in Figure 2 do not add up exactly to those in Figure 3.

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Figure 3. Number of times each concept is addressed by an article per year, used in this study

The total number of articles used within this research are distributed across a significant number of international journals. Namely, 12 articles from the total number are published in the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, thus ranking it first in the list of most addressed journals. Operations Management Research ranks the second highest in this list, with a total number of 7 articles. Both the Journal of Supply Chain Management and

International Journal of Production Economics rank third in this list, with 4 articles extracted

from each. Lastly, the Journal of World Business and International Journal of Physical

Distribution & Logistics rank fourth, with 3 articles stemming from each. All the other journals

published either 1 or 2 articles each. For simplicity, Figure 4 below illustrates the distribution of articles across the four main journals ranked from 1 to 3 (in percentages), compared to the total number of articles researched. Appendix A, instead, provides the full distribution list. This figure (Figure 3) is provided as a hint for future research to continuously check the respective international journals for new publications on the topics and concepts presented in this study.

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Figure 4. Percentage of articles (out of a total of 66) from journals used in this research

Most of the articles used throughout this study look at the setting of European and US organizations and their motivations behind insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring, as shown in Table 3 below. More specifically, 64 out of 66 articles (96.9%) analyze or look at organizations found in European countries, while 20 out of 66 articles (30.3%) look at organizations found in the US. Only 5 out of 66 articles (7.5%) look at organizations not found within Europe and the US. Given that organizations decide to bring back operations/activities mostly from Asian countries, the fact that most organizations are European or found in the US is not surprising. Moreover, while the U.S. region would imply all states, European organizations on the other hand were observed to be, in large numbers, situated towards the west. Therefore, most of the European companies originate from, but are not limited to: Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In terms of industries, 48 out of 66 articles (72.7%) look at organizations pertaining to the manufacturing industry, while only 13 articles (19.6%) mention other industries, such as the service industry. It should be noted some articles address both manufacturing and various other industries (i.e. aerodynamics, fashion) which are labeled as non-manufacturing (as they usually appear in the articles).

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Total nr. of European company occurrences Total nr. of US company occurrences Total nr. of non-European and non-US company occurrences Total nr. of manufacturing industry occurrences Total nr. of non-manufacturing industry occurrences 64 (96.9%) 20 (30.3%) 5 (7.5%) 48 (72.7%) 13 (19.6%)

Table 3. Number of occurrences of organizations across specific territories and the industries in which

they work

In terms of methodologies used, case studies were the most frequently adopted to address the topic of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and/or nearshoring, as seen in Table 4, with 37.8% out of all articles employing case studies. Overall, the type of methodologies used is evenly spread, except for articles adopting simulation/modelling methodologies. Figure 5, after the table, shows how the four concepts were distributed, under the form of percentages. From the figure, it can be seen that the concept of reshoring is dominant, considering the number of occurrences, while nearshoring is considerably less discussed.

Variable discussed Case study Survey Systematic literature review Mixed methods Simulation /modelling Other Total occurren-ces Insourcing 7 4 2 1 - 2 16 Reshoring 12 5 4 10 3 10 44 Back-shoring 4 7 5 3 1 3 23 Nearshoring 2 - 1 1 - 3 7 % of research methodology used 37.8% 18.1% 18.1% 22.7% 6.1% 27.2%

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Figure 5. Distribution of the four concepts (number of occurrences divided by the total number of

articles used in this study)

5. Analysis of the literature

This section highlights the drivers and barriers of the concepts of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearback-shoring, coupled with the key characteristics discussed earlier (see Table 1, Section 2). After, the contingency factors are presented in relation with the drivers and the characteristics, with the purpose to observe the similarities and differences of the concepts. It should be noted that the characteristics were assigned both intuitively and from how they are presented within the current literature. Because of this, the pairing of the drivers with the characteristics should not be treated as an absolute truth, but instead it should highlight that a potential relationship between them might exist (see Section 6 afterwards for the complete discussion). Insourcing, 24.24% Reshoring, 66.67% Backshoring, 34.85% Nearshoring, 10.61%

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5.1. The drivers and barriers of

insourcing/reshoring/back-shoring/nearshoring

All articles do not focus on, or at least do not mention the relevance or the reason(s) for bringing operations/activities back to be conducted in-house and how insourcing initiatives bring unique advantages not available from outsourcing/offshoring practices. These articles address the ‘why’ questions of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring and usually look first at the disadvantages of outsourcing before deriving the drivers for the concepts. The main drivers fall under six categories: cost, quality, capacity, flexibility, innovation and risk – a same approach also made with barriers. A simple ranking system of the drivers was made according to the number of their occurrences within the literature (where 1st_{rank would have the highest} occurrences, 2nd rank would have the second highest, and so on). Table 5 provides a summary of the main drivers observed on insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring, with details provided afterwards. For simplicity, the sources for the drivers are provided in Appendix

C. Drivers and sub-categories Description In-sourcing Re-shoring Back-shoring Near-shoring Sources

Cost-related

/ _(94.1%)16/17 _(87.1%)34/39 _(100%)21/21 _(87.5%)7/8 * Coordination costs Coordination and monitoring costs decrease from relying less on external partners 7/17 (41.1%) 17/39 (43.5%) 16/21 (76.1%) 2/8 (25%) Transportation /logistics costs Shorter distances cost less than greater distances that may need multiple nodes of transportation and warehousing 12/17 (70.5%) 24/39 (61.5%) 18/21 (85.7%) 2/8 (25%)

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Other Costs related to energy, late order penalties and transaction costs can be saved by doing activities in-house 9/17 (52.9%) 11/39 (28.2%) 12/21 (57.1%) -

Quality

/ 15/17 (88.2%) 33/39 (84.6%) 19/21 (90.4%) 7/8 (87.5%) * Product quality Country-of-origin phenomenon, better technology and local know-hows increase overall perceived quality 13/17 (76.4%) 31/39 (79.4%) 17/21 (80.9%) 5/8 (62.5%)

Process quality Skilled labour and more advanced technology permit a better handling of processes 6/17 (35.3%) 13/39 (33.3%) 8/21 (38%) 1/8 (12.5%)

Capacity

/ 8/17 (47.1%) 14/39 (35.9%) 13/21 (61.9%) - Maximizing capacity usage at home Bringing back operations/activities allows any underutilized capacity at the home base to be used to increase productivity 5/17 (29.4%) 12/39 (30.7%) 9/21 (42.8%) - Absorptive capacity Organizations can better recognize, assimilate and apply new knowledge and information about their customers in their home country

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Production flexibility The ability to customize and redesign products according to customer demands is achievable more quickly closer to home 3/17 (17.6%) 8/39 (20.5%) 3/21 (14.2%) - *

Lead-time Shorter distances allow for quicker deliveries and quicker production (i.e. if products arrive from offshored countries). This also leads to delivery reliability 4/17 (23.5%) 11/39 (28.2%) 9/21 (42.8%) 1 (12.5%)

Innovation

/ 10/17 (58.8%) 27/39 (69.2%) 16 /21(76.1 %) 4/8 (50%) * Skilled labour/technol ogy

Local technology and educated workers (i.e. straight out of the university) can encourage new innovative ideas 6/17 (35.2%) 14/39 (35.8%) 10/21 (47.6%) 2/8 (25%)

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Cultural differences

Differences in culture between countries can become sources of conflict and misunderstandings 4/17 (23.5%) 13/39 (33.3%) 10/21 (47.6%) 2/8 (25%) * Opportunistic behaviour/theft of intellectual property External partners can, willingly or not, jeopardize

organizational activities and progress. Insourcing reduces the reliance on external partners 8/17 (47.1%) 22/39 (56.4%) 17/21 (80.9%) -

Disruptions Some countries are prone to natural disasters and

environmental issues, while other countries face political, social and/or economic instability 6/17 (35.2%) 23/39 (58.9%) 19/21 (90.4%) 2/8 (25%)

Other factors Though debatable, insourcing can be used to reduce the risk of being a victim of terrorism or other man-made disasters 3/17 (17.6%) 15/39 (38.4%) 11/21 (52.3%) 1/8 (12.5%)

Table 5. Drivers for insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring and the number of

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As far as barriers go, only a small number of articles (approximately ten articles) present the challenges and inhibitions of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and/or nearshoring. It should be noted that these articles do not specifically investigate the barriers (except for the article of Wiesmann et al. (2017)), but mention barriers as to stick with the reality that challenges will always exist, or to guide future research in addressing this issue. Contrasting them with the drivers, the barriers to insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring also relate to key areas such as costs, flexibility and risks. Table 7 provides a summary of the barriers discussed in a few articles, with descriptions provided afterwards. After this table, each concept will be presented from the perspective of the six main drivers, how they are compared with the barriers and how they relate with the three characteristics (location, ownership, necessity).

Barriers and sub-categories Description In-sourcing Re-shoring Back-shoring Near-shoring Sources

Cost-related

1/17 (5.8%) 3/39 (7.6%) 1/21 (4.7%)

-

Stentoft et al. (2015); Stentoft et al. (2016); Wiesma nn et al. (2017); Baraldi et al. (2018); Availability of raw material/ components/items

Not all materials, components and/or items are available in the home country – or are expensive to obtain - 1/39 (2.5%) - Lack of resource allocation Insourcing is hindered due to unavailability of company resources (i.e. financial or staff-wise) 1/17 (5.8%) 3/39 (7.6%) -

Quality

- 1/39 (2.5%) - - Wiesma nn et al. (2017) Availability of skilled labour/technology Skilled labour is either more expensive (wages) or is more demanding in the home country

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Decision-making Not all may agree to the decision to insource or bring back operations/ activities, thus creating conflict 1/17 (5.8%) 1/39 (2.5%) 2/21 (9.5%) - Arlbjorn, & Mikkelse n (2014); Bailey, & De Propris (2014); Wiesma nn et al. (2017); Baraldi et al. (2018) Readiness An organization may

be distrustful towards bringing operations/activities back, or it may not be ready to invest in doing operations/activities in-house 1/17 (5.8%) 2/39 (5.1%) 1/21 (4.7%) -

Supply chain

risks

1/17 (5.8%) 5/39 (12.8%) 1 (4.7%) 1 (12.5%) Kinkel, & Maloca (2009); Ellram, & Tate (2013); Gray et al. (2013) Benstea d et al. (2017); Wiesma nn et al. (2017); Networks Bringing back

operations/activities can lead to losing access to international distribution channels 1/17 (5.8%) 3/39 (7.6%) - -

Limited access Bringing back operations/activities can lead to not having access to international suppliers and/or customers - 1/39 (2.5%) - 1/8 (12.5%)

Flexibility

- 2/39 (5.1%) 1/21 (4.7%) - Bailey, & De Propris (2014); Wiesma nn et al. (2017) Limited flexibility Having fewer (or no)

international suppliers implies that organizations must deal with volume fluctuations by themselves

- 1/39

(2.5%)

- -

Table 7. Barriers for insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring and the number of

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5.2. Insourcing drivers and barriers

Out of the six main drivers, cost-related (94.1%) and quality-related (88.2%) drivers were the most referenced under the concept of insourcing, ranking 1st_{and 2}nd_{, respectively. Based on} this, they would link with the ‘necessity’ characteristic. Several studies, such as the ones conducted by Hartman et al. (2017a), Hartman et al. (2017b) and Bals et al. (2016) show that organizations often consider the cost factor as the main motive for insourcing, particularly in terms of transportation/logistics cost. According to the authors, given that cost advantages are primary reasons for organizations to outsource, they can also become main drivers for bringing back operations/activities to be conducted in-house, once the initial cost advantages have dissipated. On the other hand, Stentoft et al. (2015) conducted a study on Danish manufacturing companies and highlight that the cost aspect under the form of resource allocation (or lack of) was a main issue for small/medium-sized companies desiring to insource, implying that insourcing would be too costly to feasibly achieve. Regarding quality, Arlbjorn, & Mikkelsen (2014), Moe et al. (2014) and Arvanitis et al. (2017) observed in their studies that organizations that outsourced in developing countries experienced lower levels of quality, especially with their products. Given that quality has become an important differentiator in terms of competitive advantage, some organizations found it necessary to consider the insourcing option, since processes conducted in-house would be of greater quality and, therefore, would lead to higher quality products that would meet customer requirements (Moe et al., 2014; Bals et al., 2016; Hartman et al., 2017).

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insourcing transition, while the second challenge relates to the supply chain and the possibility of losing international distribution networks.

Another important driver for insourcing observed throughout the articles refers to innovation (58.8%), ranking 4th, with considerable emphasis put on the proximity with the R&D department. Given that insourcing refers to wholly owned facilities and that organizations want to reduce the distance between R&D and manufacturing departments (Bals et al., 2016; Arvanitis et al., 2017; Pearce, 2014), innovation can be attributed to the ‘ownership’ characteristic. Bals et al. (2016) observed that a German company combated shorter product life cycles and faster-to-market deliveries by relocating product development and R&D as close as possible to each other. Given that this was an issue when the organization was outsourcing parts of its operations/activities in Singapore, the organization thought insourcing as the best viable strategy to solve this problem. Making use of local technology and expertise also permits an organization to respond to consumer demands and bring forth innovative solutions (Arvanitis et al., 2017; Hartman et al., 2017a).

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5.3. Reshoring drivers and barriers

The first two main drivers remained the same as with insourcing, with cost (87.1%) and quality (84.6%) being the most referenced drivers under the concept of reshoring, ranking 1st_{and 2}nd place. Based on their relevance within the literature, they fall under the ‘necessity’ characteristic. In terms of costs, a few case studies look at European organizations pertaining to the fashion industry (i.e. Martinez-Mora, & Merino, 2014; Robinson, & Hsieh, 2016) and how said organizations decided to reshore their activities based primarily on transportation and labor costs. Concretely, Martinez-Mora, & Merino (2014) acknowledged the labor costs in China that went up since year 2000, as well as the increasing transportation costs due to rising oil prices and economic growth, aspects that both led to Spanish and UK fashion organizations to reshore. Yet, studies specifically mention that it is the location that needs to be changed in order to achieve cost advantages (Brandon-Jones et al., 2017; Grappi, Romani, & bagozzi, 2018; Di Mauro et al., 2018), an aspect not considered by insourcing. Regarding quality, especially noticeable within the fashion industry is the ‘Made in X’ effect, where overall product quality (which is highly sought after) is perceived higher in countries such as Spain and the UK, rather than in other developing (Caputo, & Palumbo, 2005; Martinez-Mora, & Merino, 2014; Robinson, & Hsieh, 2016). When addressing barriers, Benstead, Stevenson, & Hendry (2017) and Wiesmann et al. (2017) again acknowledge the challenge of having sufficient resources, since moving operations/activities from an offshored country towards the domestic one would imply considerable investments. The authors also argue that skilled labor and high-quality technology are part of these investments and, therefore, present a challenge.

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alternative to rely less on offshored suppliers and more on domestic ones (Gray et al., 2013; Ancarani et al., 2015; Vanchan, Mulhall, & Bryson, 2017; Zhai et al., 2016).

The last drivers to reshoring considered based on their number of occurrences within the literature are flexibility (58.9%, ranked 5th) and capacity (35.9%, ranked last). These two drivers best fit with the ‘location’ characteristic. In terms of flexibility, Vanchan et al. (2017) highlight that UK and US organizations included flexibility as a main motivator to reshore, since relying less on far-sourced production makes an organization more flexible in handling shifting customer demands, as well as reducing inventory levels and considerable delivery times (lead time). In terms of capacity, reshoring helps with restructuring the supply chain network (Srai, & Ane, 2016; Gray et al., 2013) that can lead to a better utilization of the internal capacity in the domestic country. This becomes especially relevant, according to Benstead et al. (2017), when importance is placed on better quality and production must be shifted towards the manufacturing of high-quality products, or when a production gap is generated by offshored partners. In terms of reshoring barriers, Benstead et al. (2017) and Wiesmann et al. (2017) argue that organizations may not have the required resources to begin the reshoring process, which is no different than adopting insourcing initiatives. What is more evident, as observed by the authors, is the fact that organizations lose access to supply chain networks and distribution channels on an international level, since they will no longer be present in the country of these supply partners.

5.4. Back-shoring drivers and barriers

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Ancarani et al., 2019). In terms of risks, most articles mention the potential theft of intellectual property and loss of know-hows (Johansson, Olhager, Heikkila, & Stentoft, 2019; Di Mauro et al., 2018), and disruptions within the supply chain (Kinkel, & Maloca, 2009; Dachs et al., 2019), which fall in line with the concepts of insourcing and reshoring. In terms of barriers, Bailey, & De Propris (2014) and Wiesmann et al. (2017) acknowledged the potential issues at the company level when deciding on back-shoring initiatives, as well as the question whether an organization has the right amount of resources to start the back-shoring process. These aspects, however, show great resemblance to the concepts of insourcing and reshoring.

The next main driver for back-shoring observed across the articles is quality (90.4%), ranking 3rd out of the six drivers. The ‘location’ characteristic, in this case, becomes relevant, based on a few reasons. First, Heikkila, Martinsuo, & Nenonen (2018) and Johansson, & Olhager (2018) surveyed Finnish and Swedish organizations, respectively, and concluded that most organizations decide to back-shore their operations/activities either because the demands for quality have increased and the current quality standard cannot be maintained, or because the quality control in offshored countries is considerably challenging to do efficiently. Secondly, organizations that adopt a quality-oriented strategy and would place quality as the main factor towards competitive success would ought to bring back their operations/activities where technical skills are easier to obtain, quality standards are generally kept high, and the ‘Made in X’ effect becomes prominent (Heikkila et al., 2018; Ancarani et al., 2019).

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Zhang, 2016; Dachs et al., 2019). This implies that flexibility relates more with the ‘location’ characteristic.

The last driver to back-shoring across all articles is capacity (61.9%), ranking last (5th) out of all drivers. Indeed, few articles bring empirical evidence on the relationship between capacity and back-shoring, but there are a few showing the need to backshore just to cover any underutilized capacity (Drauz, 2014). Drachs et al. (2019) also studied several surveys on European manufacturing organizations and argue that many of the European organizations consider back-shoring to fill in the production gap through an increase of internal capacity. This shift of location to improve capacity utilization in the home country implies that capacity relates best with the ‘location’ characteristic.

5.5. Nearshoring drivers and barriers

While the concept of nearshoring was considerably less discussed when compared to the other three concepts, a few drivers were noted. The first two main drivers observed within the articles are cost and quality (87.5%), both having an equal number of occurrences, thus equally ranking 1st. Because of this, these two drivers relate more with the ‘necessity’ characteristic. In terms of costs, as noted by Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod (2019), nearshoring shares similar cost-related drivers with the other concepts, such as the reduction of labor cost, transportation/logistics costs and coordination cost. Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod (2019) argue about the lower coordination costs, since closer distances between the regions would lead to similar business models that would require less monitoring and, therefore, less costs. Quality, on the other hand, is looked at from the perspective of having operations/activities placed in regions closer to the domestic country that value quality above costs (Bals et al., 2016). This ensures that the products stemming from closer regions would be of higher quality than other regions farther away (also known as far-shoring), where quality control is harder to achieve (Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019).

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share. In terms of risk, Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod (2019) argue that intellectual property is potentially safeguarded by the fact that the home country and the nearshored one share similar organizational structures and ideals. Based on these arguments, these two drivers relate more with the ‘location’ characteristic. Lastly, a barrier to nearshoring can also be discussed from the perspective of risks, as Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod (2019) and Moe et al. (2014) acknowledge that reducing the geographical distance between the home country and the host country may lead to missed opportunities on obtaining powerful offshored suppliers.

The last driver on nearshoring observed within the articles is flexibility (37.5%), ranking it 3rd out of all drivers, while capacity has no occurrences. When it comes to flexibility, the farther an organization moves its operations/activities, the less flexible it becomes in meeting shifts in customer requirements and volume production, thus making nearshoring a viable tactic to increase flexibility (Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019). According to the authors, longer distances between regions lead to higher time-to-market deliveries and potential delivery shortages (taking a considerably long time to fix), while closer regions would lead to opposite effects. Based on this, flexibility can be paired with the ‘location’ characteristic, thus leaving the ‘ownership’ characteristic with zero attributed drivers.

5.6. Comparison of drivers and barriers between the concepts

Table 8 below shows the ranking of the drivers addressed in this study, based primarily on the number of occurrences across the studied articles. The purpose of the table is to see whether patterns form per concept in terms of drivers. Appendix D does the same with the sub-drivers (or lower-level drivers). It can be observed that some drivers occupy the same position in terms of ranking, simply due to the fact that they had an equal percentage (or % of occurrence). From the above-mentioned drivers and barriers, one can see that cost and quality-related drivers are the most discussed, followed by risk mitigation and innovation, and finally by flexibility and capacity. Investigating the pattern, no major differences can be observed between the concepts when it comes to addressing their main drivers. In other words, the order in which the drivers are ranked is relevant across all concepts, with slight differences in the order depending on what organizations focus on (i.e. more on risk than on quality).

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into detail on what type of costs exist. Given that back-shoring brings operations/activities back in the home country specifically, studies on this concept investigate more thoroughly on the cost advantages (Arlbjorn, & Mikkelsen, 2014; Johansson, & Olhager, 2018; Hekkila et al., 2018; Dachs et al., 2019). The same can be said about other lower-level drivers: maximizing capacity usage in the home country, improving volume flexibility, reducing lead times and reducing the risk of opportunistic behaviours and possible disruptions are more prominent with back-shoring, given its specific implication on bringing operations/activities back home, compared with insourcing and reshoring, which are more generic and do not specifically mention the location. The sub-driver of positioning R&D closer to manufacturing received less attention for back-shoring compared to insourcing and reshoring. Nearshoring, on the other hand, had only the sub-drivers of labour cost and product quality prominent, which fall in line with the other three concepts. The other sub-drivers of nearshoring were hardly mentioned.

Rankings of

drivers

Insourcing Reshoring Back-shoring Nearshoring

1st Cost Cost Cost Cost Quality

2nd Quality Quality Risk Innovati

on

Risk

3rd Risk Innovation Quality Flexibility

4th Innovation Risk

Innova-tion

Flexibi-lity

/

5th Capacity Flexibility Capacity /

6th _Flexibility _Capacity _/ _/

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Due to the lack of occurrences of barriers in the studies articles, it is difficult to rely on a ranking system. However, it can be observed that the highlighted barriers are found among all concepts, except for nearshoring, which is only looked at from the perspective of losing potential suppliers, justifying the need of mentioning. Aspects such as the industry in which organizations work, their different sizes, their financial position and the customers that they serve may show what drivers are most important per organization and what barriers might inhibit insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring initiatives, but this is further discussed in the upcoming section.

5.7. The relevance of contingency factors

The drivers and barriers discussed before are based on empirical evidence that differs considerably from case to case. Therefore, one cannot judge that a driver would be of utmost importance to one organization and would remain the same with a thousand of other cases. To this regard, Moore et al. (2018) and Benstead et al. (2017) propose what they label as contingency factors, based on the contingency theory – factors shaping decisions or events, or the impact that certain drivers have on the decision to conduct operations/activities in-house.

A significant number of articles (37 out of 66) mention company (or firm) size when analyzing organizations that either insource, reshore, back-shore or nearshore (see Appendix E). These studies also address the financial position of these organizations, noting the differences in the resources owned by MNE (multinational enterprises) and SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). Moreover, most of the studies focus on the manufacturing industry and on organizations found in European countries and in the U.S. (see Table 3), both SMEs and larger organizations with a given number of employees and an annual revenue (Martinez-Mora, & Merino, 2014; Dachs et al., 2019; Lampon, & Gonzalez-Benito, 2019; Moe et al., 2014; Di Mauro et al., 2018; Grappi et al., 2015; Johansson, & Olhager, 2018; Heikkila et al., 2018; Ancarani et al., 2019).

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SMEs still decide to insource, reshore or back-shore to improve quality and cut down outsourcing/offshoring costs (with some exceptions, as seen in the study of Baraldi et al., 2016). Moore et al. (2018) and Benstead et al. (2017) also looked at MNEs and argue that improved innovation and the acquisition of better technology and skilled labor drive them to adopt either of the concepts, rather than specifically seeking cost advantages.

Secondly, articles show through statistical inference that the concepts are rarely constrained by company size (Wiesmann et al., 2017; Bailey, & De Propis, 2014; Gylling et al., 2015; Kinkel,

& Maloca, 2009; Kinkel, 2012). In other words, the studies show that organizations decide to insource, reshore, back-shore and nearshore regardless of their size, given that the motivators

to adopt either of the concepts are relatively the same, with differences being instead pointed out on the strategy or the objectives set by organizations. Articles looking at specific industries, such as the fashion or automotive industries that sell specific product types, also note that organizations are considering, or are currently adopting either of the concepts, irrespective of their size (Martinez-Mora, & Merino, 2014; Bailey, & De Propris, 2014; Robinson, & Hsieh, 2016; Grappi et al., 2018). Indeed, it is true that the financial situation and company size are usually related and that it plays a role in the degree of adopting one of the concepts, as in ‘how much’ to insource, reshore, back-shore or nearshore. However, articles usually do not find correlations between the resources and the number of employees that organizations have, and the decision to adopt either of the concepts (Baraldi et al., 2018; Heikkila et al., 2018; Dachs et al., 2019; Drauz, 2014; Lampon, & Gonzalez-Benito, 2019), with the exception of a few isolated cases.

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(although they are few in number on nearshoring), the principles of short-term vs. long-term benefits would apply to all of them. In other words, articles addressing insourcing mention the same benefits (be them considered short or long-term) as with the articles addressing the other three, and vice versa.

6. Discussion

This researched was conducted in an attempt to investigate the underexplored concepts of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring, and what similarities/differences can be observed between them. The characteristics, drivers, barriers and contingency factors were used in order to do so and to answer the proposed research question, with the intention to provide a solid foundation for future research to use.

This research started with the idea that the four concepts are considered nested. This means that all concepts share specific similarities, where insourcing is the generic representation of conducting operations/activities in-house, while the concepts of reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring narrow the field. Current literature acknowledged this idea of narrowing the field and proposed three main characteristics attributed to the concepts: location, ownership and necessity (Bals et al., 2016; Foerstl et al., 2016; Hartman et al., 2017a; Hartman et al., 2017b; Benstead et al., 2017; Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019). Regarding terminology, the characteristics help in providing distinctions between the concepts, showing that they are unique in a given way. However, this study went on to discover factors beyond the characteristics provided to observe whether the concepts are indeed unique or are similar enough that they can be treated interchangeably. Thus, a first proposition is offered:

Proposition 1: The three key characteristics (location, ownership, necessity) help in distinguishing the concepts, in terms of terminology.

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on reshoring (Zhai et al., 2016; Robinson, & Hsieh, 2016; Vanchan et a., 2017; Grappi et al., 2018) acknowledged that the drivers are set according to the organizational strategy, necessity and specific objectives, irrespective of specific characteristics. Empirical evidence also shows that this reasoning is no different compared to organizations that decide to backshore (Arlbjorn, & Mikkelsen, 2014; Heikkila et al., 2018; Ancarani et al., 2019; Dachs et al., 2019), insource (Bals et al., 2016; Foerstl et al., 2016), or nearshore (Piatanesi, & Arauzo-Carod, 2019; Hartman et al., 2017b). In summary, an organization will find that the drivers remain relatively the same, irrespective of the concept chosen or the characteristic attributed to it.

Barriers were considerably less discussed within the literature. The reason behind this was evidenced by Wiesmann et al. (2017) in a couple of ways. Firstly, empirical evidence on the concepts of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring is lacking compared with the outsourcing/offshoring counterparts. Because of this, literature now tries to find the motives to initiate one of these concepts, instead of highlighting the refrains. Secondly, studies that bring new empirical evidence look for organizations that adopted one of the concepts and succeeded in their endeavour – in other words, success stories are looked at instead of cases of failure, and information on failures is far less presented than successes (Benstead et al., 2017; Hartman et al., 2017b; Wiesmann et al., 2017). Because empirical evidence lacks in brining concrete examples of barriers to either of the concepts, it becomes difficult to judge whether the concepts would be similar or different based on the challenges that organizations face when insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring. Based on these aspects, two additional propositions are offered:

Proposition 2: The drivers and sub-drivers may influence how an organization decides to start conducting operations/activities in-house but does not differentiate the concepts between themselves.

Proposition 3: The barriers to insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring do not highlight whether the concepts are similar or different.

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Gonzalez-Benito, 2019; Moe et al., 2014; Di Mauro et al., 2018; Grappi et al., 2015; Johansson, & Olhager, 2018; Heikkila et al., 2018). A noticeable issue instead may regard the financial position of organizations, where organizations that have at least some resources may outsource/offshore and then decide to bring back operations/activities, while organizations that do not possess said resources will probably not do so in the first place. However, Benstead et al. (2017), Moore et al. (2018) and Martinez-Mora, & Merino (2014) bring forth factors that are equally relevant across all concepts, so there can be no definitive conclusion that the contingency factors would differentiate the concepts. Thus, a final proposition is offered:

Proposition 4: The contingency factors may influence an organization to either insource, reshore, back-shore or nearshore, but they do not differentiate the concepts between them, given the relevance that they have regardless of the concept chosen.

Taking everything into consideration, only the characteristics provided in this study would show some differences between the concepts but cannot be considered the absolute truth based only on a location decision, on ownership or on necessity. Given that the drivers and barriers would be equally relevant across all concepts, as well as the contingency factors influencing organizations on what to focus, irrespective of what concept they choose, leads to the idea that the concepts cannot be truly distinguished. The right terminology, instead, can provide theorists new avenues for research without the risk of confusion when addressing the concepts.

6.1. Managerial implications

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6.2. Limitations and future research

This paper does not come without limitations. First of all, since this paper adopted a SLR methodology, no new empirical evidence was provided, and no statistical measurements were used to assess whether relationships form between the concepts based on their characteristics, drivers, barriers and contingency factors. In order to further analyse the concepts and what they entail, future research should continue focusing on gathering necessary data from organizations of all forms, pertaining to any kind of industry, and stemming from multiple contexts/countries. At this point in the literature, any additional data regarding an organization in a different setting that decided to initiate one of the four concepts would yield a highly needed new set of results to be interpreted and further developed.

A second limitation of this paper is the lack of a deeper investigation regarding contingency factors and, therefore, future research should take into account the contingency factors presented in this study, as well as those highlighted by Martinez-Mora, & Merino (2014), Benstead et al. (2017) and Moore et al. (2018), when seeking new empirical data. By doing so, one may examine closely whether there is a relationship between specific concepts and influencing factors. So far, much of the literature focuses more on the drivers and motivations for adopting the concepts, without questioning whether there are additional factors into play.

Thirdly, the existing literature on nearshoring is highly limited. Given that there is an unequal number of articles in the current literature on the four concepts, it becomes hard to judge exactly whether one specific driver, barrier or influencing factor becomes more prominent than another and would yield the same results in case of replication. Since nearshoring is a combination of insourcing/outsourcing and offshoring/reshoring, future research that address either of these topics can bring new relevant information on this particular concept. In other words, both outsourcing and insourcing articles have the potential to further explain the nearshoring concept.

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barriers presented both here and within the literature are also found in outsourcing and offshoring practices.

7. Conclusion

This study was made in order to investigate the underexplored concepts of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring by focusing on their characteristics, drivers, barriers, and contingency (or influencing) factors, in order to note the similarities and differences between them. This was summarized through a proposed research question:

How are the topics of insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring presented and differentiated within the current literature, based on their characteristics, drivers, barriers and contingency (or influencing) factors?

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Insourcing, reshoring, back-shoring and nearshoring