7.06 Resilience and sustainability of global value/supply chains and re-shoring strategies

SPOKE DI RIFERIMENTO

SPOKE CORRELATI

PROJECT LEADER
Stefano Elia, Lucia Tajoli

PROPOSER
Politecnico di Milano

PARTNER COINVOLTI
Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II, Politecnico di Bari, Università degli Studi di Bergamo

7.06 Resilience and sustainability of global value/supply chains and re-shoring strategies

Global Value/Supply Chains (GV/SCs) have been subject to several challenges during the last years, due to the rise of some macro-trends that are affecting the cross-border production networks. Specifically, international geopolitical tensions, digital transformation, sustainability, and made-in effects are shaping (and will continue to shape) the evolution of GV/SCs.

According to UNCTAD (2020), two scenarios are more likely for the future of GV/SCs: (i) diversification, which implies the adaptation of GV/SCs to the trends through a geographic reconfiguration of some activities and the adoption of digital technologies aimed at increasing their resilience; (ii), regionalization, which implies a shortening of the chains through some reshoring initiatives, aimed at reducing the exposure to international risks and accommodating the challenge of sustainability and made-in effect.

This project aims at understanding how macro-trends are affecting the participation of Italian companies to GV/SCs, by providing evidence on the reconfiguration and relocation strategies adopted by Italian companies in different industries, as well as on the mechanism that triggers managers in field to reshape the footprint of their GV/SCs when they are subject to pressures (such as the sustainability challenge or the threat of unexpected disruptions) that give birth to trade-offs.

More specifically, the project will be developed along three different research lines.

Macro-economic analysis, aimed at studying the impact of Italian participation to GVCs on the competitiveness of made-in-Italy, employment and environment, using inter-country input-output databases, econometrics and network analysis as main methodologies.
Meso-economic analysis, aimed at studying the global footprint reconfiguration and the reshoring choices of Italian companies across different industries and their impact on the competitiveness of the made-in-Italy and on the attractiveness of the national territories, using national surveys, descriptive statistics, and econometrics as main methodologies. Governance issues and criticalities will be taken into account as well as the most appropriate and strategic resources and capabilities in these processes.
Micro-economic analysis, aimed at studying the mechanisms affecting the decision-making process of supply chain managers who are responsible to reshape the footprint of their companies in situations of trade-offs, using experimental economics, logistics assessments, case studies and quantitative models as main methodologies.

Each research line will be further divided in two different work-packages (WP).
Macro-economic analysis:

WP1: The evolution of GVCs and their impact on Italian participation in GVCs and on their competitiveness.
WP2: The impact of GVCs transformations on national employment.
Meso-economic analysis:
WP3: GVCs reconfiguration of business models, strategic competencies and governance choices of Italian companies to increase resilience and sustainability.
WP4: The reshoring phenomenon: drivers and performance assessment.
Micro-economic analysis:
WP5: Decision-making processes of supply-chain managers: the trade-offs between resilience and sustainability of GVCs.
WP6: Planning logistic flows in GVCs: challenges and opportunities.

RISULTATI ATTESI

This project will provide guidelines, tools, interpretative frameworks, and quantitative models that can be adopted by managers and policymakers to improve the competitiveness and sustainability of made-in-Italy products and firms and the attractiveness of their home territories.

The main key exploitative results that will be achieved by this project – among those ones reported in the main proposal of Spoke 7 – are:

Framework to assess the benefits and risks of reshoring (back-, near- and next-shoring).
Guidelines for circular procurement and efficient secondary raw material markets.
Quantitative models to steer the decision process when it comes to evaluating alternative GVC configurations.

In the following, we describe for each WP the partners involved, the main methodologies employed, the deliverables, the expected results, and the expected impact.

WP1

Partners involved: POLIMI (Tajoli)
Main methodologies: econometric analysis of quantitative models and network analysis.
Expected results: indicators for performance assessments at the country and industry level (Y1 and Y2), Scientific papers (Y2 and Y3), conferences and dissemination events (Y2 and Y3).
Expected impact: improved understanding of the consequences of GVCs participation on Italy’s economic growth and policy indications.

WP2

Partners involved: POLIMI (Tajoli), Università di Napoli (Bruno)
Main methodologies: econometric analysis of quantitative models.
Expected results: indicators for performance assessment at the country and industry level (Y1 and Y2), Scientific papers (Y2 and Y3), conferences and dissemination events (Y2 and Y3).
Expected impact: improved understanding of the consequences of GVCs participation on Italy’s labor market and employment, and policy indications.

WP3

Partners involved: PoliMI (Elia, Cigolini), Università di Napoli (Grassi), Università di Bergamo (Campopiano)
Main methodologies: Survey, simulation models, quantitative models.
Expected results: tools for performance assessments (Y1 and Y2), business models and guidelines on GVCs reconfigurations (Y1 and Y2), Scientific papers (Y2 and Y3), conferences and dissemination events (Y2 and Y3).
Expected impact: Increases resilience and sustainability of the GVCs of the Italian firms.

WP4

Partners involved: PoliMI (Elia, Cigolini), Università di Napoli (Grassi, Della Corte, Pontecorvo),Università di Bergamo (Campopiano)
Main methodologies: Survey, simulation models, qualitative and quantitative models
Expected results: tools for performance assessments (Y1 and Y2), business models and guidelines on GVCs reconfigurations (Y1 and Y2), resource-based analysis of firms and networks’ strategies and connected governance (Y1 and Y2), Scientific papers (Y2 and Y3), conferences and dissemination events (Y2 and Y3).
Expected impact: Increased profitability and competitiveness of the firms and of the strategic networks.

WP5

Partners involved: Polimi (Elia), Università di Bergamo (Campopiano)
Main methodologies: Experimental economics
Expected results: interpretative frameworks and guidelines to support the decision-making process of supply chain managers (Y1 and Y2), Scientific papers (Y2 and Y3), conferences and dissemination events (Y2 and Y3).
Expected impact: Increased managerial capabilities.

WP6

Partners involved: PoliMI (Cigolini); Napoli (Grassi), PoliBA(Facchini)
Main methodologies: case studies (Y2 and Y3), simulation models (Y2 and Y3), logistics assessment of functional performance of material and information flows (Y1 and Y2), quantitative models (Y1 and Y2).
Expected results: Scientific papers, conferences and dissemination events, tools for planning the execution flow, business models and frameworks and guidelines to support the decision-making process of supply chain managers.
Expected impact: Increased managerial capabilities.

7.06 Resilience and sustainability of global value/supply chains and re-shoring strategies

7.06 Resilience and sustainability of global value/supply chains and re-shoring strategies

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