Backsourcing and Knowledge Re-integration: A Case Study

Recently, the interest in the phenomenon of backsourcing has increased, which has been inspired by awareness of the real costs of global outsourcing and the importance of keeping manufacturing in-house or in geographical proximity. However, backsourcing research is still in its infancy. In particular, this strategy requires a successful knowledge re-integration process when organizations employ backsourcing as their new sourcing strategy, which is addressed in this paper. To expand the understanding of backsourcing, a literature review of this phenomenon is given, and based on findings from a case company in the Norwegian shipbuilding industry, we present critical success factors for knowledge re-integration when bringing manufacturing back in-house.