BACKSHORING: TOWARDS INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY RESEARCH AGENDA

Backshoring keeps gaining popularity with consultancies, politicians and businesses alike, yet academic research lags behind this seemingly increasing practice. Through a narrative, critical overview of literature the paper demonstrates incipient nature of backshoring research and identifies international business and economic geography as most relevant disciplines in furthering the understanding of the phenomenon and its managerial, policy and developmental significance. The number of firms which backshored some or all of their activities from locations abroad appears to be growing, however due to unavailability of reliable data it is difficult to accurately assess how common backshoring is. There is a problem even with estimating the scale of the phenomenon which stems from the fact that the concept remains to be ill-defined. Consequently, current research is dominated by contradicting observations disallowing meaningful conclusion. However it is such shortcomings which arguably offer an unmissable opportunity for theory testing and development, and contribution to managerial practice and policy design.