Going Local: A Trend towards Insourcing of Production?

This article evaluates and discusses the trend towards insourcing of production that has been proposed in the media and in a few recent studies. The article sets the context of this trend, defining and relating key terms such as outsourcing and insourcing. Based on a large-scale survey conducted in Denmark, we provide empirical results focussing on the extent to which Danish manufacturing companies have outsourced and insourced and the extent of and reasons for outsourcing and insourcing from and to Denmark. The results show that although many companies have considered returning activities to Danish shores relatively few have actually taken such action. The article contributes large-scale empirical data from firms of different sizes and discusses whether or not the trend towards global and low-cost country sourcing is likely to see a reversal to local sourcing.