View detailed call for papers

SASE 2015
Call for paper for Session on Research Network
O: Global Value Chains
GVC in Advanced Economies:
Re-shoring and Re-industrialization
Co-Organizers:
Mariachiara Barzotto, Ca’ Foscari University Venice, [email protected]
Giancarlo Corò, Ca’ Foscari University Venice, [email protected]
Lisa De Propris, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham,
[email protected]
Mario Volpe, Ca’ Foscari University Venice, [email protected]
ABSTRACT
In the last decades, the global economy has gone through an intense reorganisation. This
change has been characterised by a cross-border fragmentation of the production processes
that has given rise to the formation of global value chains (Gereffi et al., 2001). Companies
localised in high-income economies have mainly focused on performing high value-added
upstream and downstream activities, offshoring low value-added operations to low-cost
labour locations.
More recently the benefits of this tendency for advanced economies has been
questioned (Pisano and Shih, 2012; Berger, 2013), since offshoring has triggered deindustrialisation process that has threatened innovation capabilities. Indeed, the relocation of
operations away from industrialised nations has led to the erosion of manufacturing
competences, skills (Bailey et al., 2010), and - in general - of all the Marshallian externalities
of the domestic environment that have supported the growth of high-income countries in the
past.
In order to counter these negative trends, enterprises based in in advanced economies
have started “moving manufacturing back to the country of its parent company” (Ellram,
2013: 3), a phenomenon referred to as re-shoring. The reshoring trend has impacted the
structure of the Global Value Chains (GVCs) by re-defining the optimal location for
manufacturing and the relationships among the actors engaged with the GVC. Enterprises that
have decided to bring their production activities back and/or near to their country of origin
had to face a domestic environment that is different from the one they left. Indeed, offshoring
processes may have progressively hollowed out local resources, such as the downgrading of
skills and the erosion of industrial “ecosystems” (Berger, 2013).
Notwithstanding a growing body of research that is drawing attention to this
discourse (see Christopherson et al., 2014), there are important issues that have been
overlooked. This paper session aims to investigate to what extent advanced countries could
undertake re-industrialisation processes in order to boost their long-term competitiveness. We
encourage contributions that provide insight on (but not limited to) themes such as:
• Why and how Western industrialised economies should try to rebuild their
manufacturing heritage?
• What are the main features of re-shoring processes? In particular, what are the
emerging trends in terms of business functions (Brown et al., 2013) that companies are
moving back?
• How can we measure the erosion of industrial commons (Pisano and Shih, 2012) that
characterise the advanced economies?
• To what extent should policy-makers support and promote a manufacturing
renaissance in advanced countries?
• How can education systems (higher education, vocational education and training)
intervene to tackle skill shortage in Western industrialised economies?
We invite papers that address these issues on theoretical, methodological or empirical level,
or some combination.
REFERENCES
Bailey, D., Bellandi, M., Caloffi, A., and De Propris, L. 2010. Place-renewing leadership: trajectories
of change for mature manufacturing regions in Europe. Policy Studies. 31(4): 457-474.
Berger, S. 2013. Making in America. From Innovation to Market. The MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Brown, C., Sturgeon, T. and Cole, C. 2013. The 2010 National Organizations Survey: Examining the
Relationships Between Job Quality and the Domestic and International Sourcing of Business Functions
by United States Organizations. IRLE Working Paper No. 156-13.
Christopherson, S., Martin, R., Sunley, P., and Tyler, P. 2014. Reindustrialising regions: rebuilding the
manufacturing economy?. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 7(3):351-358.
Ellram, L.M. 2013. Off-shoring, reshoring and the manufacturing location decision. Journal of Supply
Chain Management. 49(2):3–5.
Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J., Kaplinsky, R. and Sturgeon, T. J. 2001. Introduction: Globalisation, Value
Chains and Development. IDS Bulletin, 32: 1–8.
Pisano, G. P., and Shih, W. 2012. Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing
Renaissance. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.