What do we want to know about reshoring? Towards a comprehensive framework based on a meta-synthesis

This study aims to develop a framework for reshoring research, specifying the aspects encompassing a full case description. The article reports an analysis of existing case-based research focusing on manufacturing reshoring and the previous offshoring events, with the aim to advance the knowledge within the field through an accumulation process. The selected methodology to achieve this purpose is meta-synthesis, a type of meta-analysis applied to the analysis of qualitative data. The analyzed data are retrieved from a sample of 14 articles including cases of offshoring and subsequent reshoring processes. The sample represent the total population of articles published in peer-reviewed sources. By focusing on the analysis on the article level and the findings generated by the original authors, the study allowed to build a comprehensive framework to lead future reshoring research, as well as to demonstrate the suitability of the methodology in achieving knowledge accumulation even if the articles have different characteristics in terms of theoretical perspectives, unit of analysis, number of cases and context. In doing so, this study contributes to the field of reshoring and more widely to the operations and supply chain management field. Furthermore, this research generates many practical implications, by condensing all the evidences about manufacturing reshoring so far collected in one single study, thus providing examples of challenges and best-practices.