During the 1980s, manufacturing industry, by transferring blue-collar production to countries characterised by low wages and operating costs, set up what scholars define offshoring, becoming one of most effective strategies in the 21st century implemented to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. Although the offshoring diffusion, in the last years, companies have tried to get benefits from Relocations of Second Degree (RSD), also known as reshoring, of previously offshored activities. Depending on the location of the destination country, relocations of second degree can be classified into two categories: Relocation to Home Country (RHC), when the company decides to bring back to the country of origin previously-offshored activities, and Relocation to Third Country (RTC), when the company decides to relocate in a country other than home, which will be the focus of our study. Indeed, the scope of our work is to assess how industry characteristics influence the intensity of RTCs, expressed in terms of job reduction in the first host country. Firstly, we reviewed the extant literature regarding reshoring and offshoring, in order to have a clear picture of the background, highlighting characteristics, driving motivations, benefits and risks and their relationship with employment. Secondly, by adopting and adapting the framework proposed by DuBois et al. (1993), which helped us to develop the hypotheses to test, we have pointed out and described the industry-, country- and firm- specific factors impacting on the magnitude of RTCs and their relationships. In particular, the choice to include in our study country- and firm-specific factors has been driven by the attempt to create a continuum with the extant literature. Later, we performed the data analysis, first defining some descriptive statistics, and then by implementing the regression model. Our regression sample contains 114 observations of intra-EU RTCs, distributed between 2009-2016, whose data are collected from different databases, mostly from the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), World Bank Database and Orbis – Bureau van Dijk. The results of our analysis suggest that outsourcing and innovation propensity increase the number of jobs reduced in the first host country when an RTC is performed, while capital intensity has the opposite effect. Additionally, we conducted a further investigation to test if interactions between the three layers of the analysis impact on the job reduction in the first host country, and the results suggest that industry characteristics accompanied by both firm- and country-specific factors significantly influence the relocation intensity. Lastly, we have presented the conclusions of the analysis, together with our work limitations and suggestions for future empirical research.
Negli anni ‘80 del XX secolo, il settore manifatturiero, con il trasferimento della produzione a basso valore aggiunto verso paesi caratterizzati da bassi costi operativi e salariali, ha dato vita a ciò che gli studiosi chiamano offshoring, diventando una delle più efficaci strategie del XXI secolo implementate per acquisire e mantenere un vantaggio competitivo. Nonostante la diffusione del fenomeno dell’offshoring, negli ultimi anni, le aziende hanno provato a ottenere benefici dalle Rilocazioni di Secondo Livello (RSL), conosciute anche come reshoring, di attività precedentemente delocalizzate. Sulla base del paese di destinazione, le RSL possono essere classificate in due categorie: Rilocazione verso il Paese d’Origine (RPO), quando l’azienda decide di riportare le attività precedentemente delocalizzate nel paese d’origine, e Rilocazione verso un Terzo Paese (RTP), quando l’azienda decide di spostarsi in un paese diverso da quello d’origine; quest’ultimo caso sarà il focus del nostro studio. Infatti, l’obiettivo del nostro lavoro è quello di valutare come le caratteristiche settoriali influenzano l’intensità delle RTP, espressa in termini di riduzione di posti di lavoro nel primo paese ospitante. Inizialmente abbiamo eseguito una revisione della letteratura riguardante la reshoring e la delocalizzazione per avere un’immagine chiara del contesto, evidenziando le caratteristiche, le motivazioni, i benefici e i rischi e la loro relazione con l’occupazione. Successivamente, adottando e adattando il modello di riferimento proposto da DuBois et al. (1993), il quale ci ha aiutato a sviluppare le ipotesi da testare, abbiamo messo in evidenza e descritto i fattori specifici a livello di settore, paese e azienda che impattano sull’intensità delle RTP e le loro relazioni. Nello specifico, la scelta di includere nel nostro studio fattori specifici a livello di paese e di azienda è stata dettata dal tentativo di creare un continuum con la letteratura esistente. In seguito, abbiamo eseguito l’analisi dei dati, prima definendo delle statistiche descrittive e poi implementando il modello di regressione. Il campione utilizzato per l’analisi contiene 114 osservazioni di rilocazioni all’interno dei confini dell'UE, distribuite tra il 2009 e il 2016, i cui dati sono stati raccolti da diversi database, in particolare da the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), World Bank Database and Orbis – Bureau van Dijk. I risultati della nostra analisi suggeriscono che la propensione all’esternalizzazione e all’innovazione aumentano la contrazione dei posti di lavoro nel primo paese ospitante quando viene eseguita una RTP, mentre la intensità di capitali ha l’effetto opposto. In aggiunta, abbiamo condotto un ulteriore studio per testare se le interazioni fra le tre dimensioni di analisi avessero un impatto sulla contrazione dei posti di lavoro nel primo paese ospitante la RSL, e i risultati suggeriscono che le caratteristiche a livello di industria, unite a quelle a livello di paese e azienda, influiscono in maniera significativa sull’intensità della rilocazione. Infine, abbiamo presentato le conclusioni dell’analisi, insieme alle limitazioni e alle proposte per la ricerca futura.
Further offshoring : an industry perspective of the phenomenon
HU, HUIJING ALESSIA;Guerrieri, Ilaria
2019/2020
Abstract
During the 1980s, manufacturing industry, by transferring blue-collar production to countries characterised by low wages and operating costs, set up what scholars define offshoring, becoming one of most effective strategies in the 21st century implemented to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. Although the offshoring diffusion, in the last years, companies have tried to get benefits from Relocations of Second Degree (RSD), also known as reshoring, of previously offshored activities. Depending on the location of the destination country, relocations of second degree can be classified into two categories: Relocation to Home Country (RHC), when the company decides to bring back to the country of origin previously-offshored activities, and Relocation to Third Country (RTC), when the company decides to relocate in a country other than home, which will be the focus of our study. Indeed, the scope of our work is to assess how industry characteristics influence the intensity of RTCs, expressed in terms of job reduction in the first host country. Firstly, we reviewed the extant literature regarding reshoring and offshoring, in order to have a clear picture of the background, highlighting characteristics, driving motivations, benefits and risks and their relationship with employment. Secondly, by adopting and adapting the framework proposed by DuBois et al. (1993), which helped us to develop the hypotheses to test, we have pointed out and described the industry-, country- and firm- specific factors impacting on the magnitude of RTCs and their relationships. In particular, the choice to include in our study country- and firm-specific factors has been driven by the attempt to create a continuum with the extant literature. Later, we performed the data analysis, first defining some descriptive statistics, and then by implementing the regression model. Our regression sample contains 114 observations of intra-EU RTCs, distributed between 2009-2016, whose data are collected from different databases, mostly from the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), World Bank Database and Orbis – Bureau van Dijk. The results of our analysis suggest that outsourcing and innovation propensity increase the number of jobs reduced in the first host country when an RTC is performed, while capital intensity has the opposite effect. Additionally, we conducted a further investigation to test if interactions between the three layers of the analysis impact on the job reduction in the first host country, and the results suggest that industry characteristics accompanied by both firm- and country-specific factors significantly influence the relocation intensity. Lastly, we have presented the conclusions of the analysis, together with our work limitations and suggestions for future empirical research.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/166400