The Implementation Of Back-Shoring By SMEs: An Entrepreneurial Perspective

The study investigates the implementation of back-shoring initiatives by small and medium entrepreneurial firms. The study focuses on how the logics of effectuation or causation inform back-shoring implementation strategies according to the entrepreneur’s perception of uncertainty in the home-country environment. Using a multiple qualitative case studies approach involving six SMEs that have relocated from China back to the home-country, we obtain information on perceived uncertainty, implementation strategies and back-shoring performance at different temporal stages of the initiative. Results suggest that successful back-shoring combines causation and effectuation while failure of the relocation initiative is associated to an initial underestimation of the entrepreneur’s liability of outsidership in the home country.