Reverse Relocation, Off-shoring and Back-shoring: Moving Labor and Capital in the Global Economy

The present chapter aim to describe and analyze the different evolution pattern of the industrial district of Arzignano, located in the North of Italy and specialized in leather tanning. Traditionally, the internationalisation pattern of Italian clusters and districts has mainly been driven by export. During the 1990s and 2000s we assisted to a new approach towards the internazionalisation through the off-shoring strategy to exploit the advantages deriving from the global differentiation of competitive conditions. This has lead the firms of the clusters to reconfigure globally their value chains. From the result of our meta-analysis emerges that, nowadays, large MNEs located within the industrial district, have back-shored in part their production. This is especially the case of the homegrown MNEs of the Arzignano district. The model of ‘reverse relocation’ seems to be a major factor in local development which prevents the activation of de-industrialisation mechanisms and induces local actors to invest in higher value-added production phases.