How will the backshoring trend evolve after the COVID-19 crisis ? Towards a new paradigm of regionalisation ?
Files
Gielens_96361500_2021.pdf
Open access - Adobe PDF
- 690.37 KB
GIELENS_96361500_2021_APPENDIX1.pdf
Open access - Adobe PDF
- 62.59 KB
GIELENS_96361500_2021_APPENDIX2.pdf
Open access - Adobe PDF
- 153.5 KB
GIELENS_96361500_2021_APPENDIX3.pdf
Open access - Adobe PDF
- 123.24 KB
GIELENS_96361500_2021_APPENDIX4.pdf
Open access - Adobe PDF
- 135.66 KB
Details
- Supervisors
- Faculty
- Degree label
- Abstract
- The aim of this research is to find whether the COVID-19 crisis will create more backshoring (bringing back part of or the whole production of a firm to its home-country) among multinational companies and lead to forms of international business regionalisation inside continents. Four experts directly involved with the topic at the Belgian or European level were interviewed to analyse the possible outcomes of the crisis in different industries. The results are surprising in the sense that they go in the opposite direction than what was expected before the start of the research. But they show that no hasty decisions should be made in disrupted times and that firms should instead take time to analyse all scenarios as well as pros and cons when deciding to backshore production. Thanks to the respondents' contributions, we make recommendations to companies and authorities to adapt their Global Value Chains to be better prepared to face future crises.