Reshoring and Industry 4.0. A multiple case study analysis.

Abstract

The purpose of this final thesis is to examine the peculiarities of relocation trends, in particular reshoring and nearshoring, and their potential correlation with the latest technological wave, established around the so-called Industry 4.0. The last decades and recent events - geopolitical turmoil, raising nationalism, Coronavirus disruption, supply chains bottlenecks, etc - have displayed all the intrinsic leaks and weaknesses of globalisation as we have known it until now, consequently increasing scepticism and fuelling new internationalisation strategies. Indeed, as Information Technology and computers initialised the third industrial revolution in the late 70s, the Internet and I4.0 technologies are now triggering a fourth industrial revolution, also addressed to as “Globotics”, by the union of ‘globalisation’ and ‘robotics’, its main actors.

In this context, the adopted approach has started by inferring the main macro trends through an extensive literature review of both quantitative and qualitative data, covering the main topics: globalisation and global value chains (Chapter I), fourth industrial revolution and Industry 4.0 (Chapter II), and reshoring (Chapter III). The investigation has then been enriched by a qualitative analysis through interviews to a sample of respondents from Italian companies and associations, so to grasp the most impelling issues and the next challenges ahead (Chapter IV).