PLEASE READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS AND INFORMATION CAREFULLY.
This assignment contributes 50% to your final module mark.

Please ensure that you retain a duplicate of your assignment.  We are required to send samples of student work to the external examiners for moderation purposes.  It will also safeguard in the unlikely event of your work going astray.

All research paper based assessments are now required to be submitted via ‘Turnitin’ to check for plagiarism.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

You are required to submit your work within the bounds of the University Academic Misconduct regulations (please refer to policies AQH-F7 for more detail).  This covers: cheating, plagiarism, collusion, falsifying data, impersonation and any other form of dishonest practice. Although you should make full use of any source material, which would normally be an occasional sentence and/or paragraph  (referenced) followed by your own critical analysis/evaluation.  You will receive no marks for work that is not your own. Your work will be subject to checks for originality using ‘Turnitin’.

Where you are asked to submit an individual piece of work, the work must be entirely your own.  The safety of your assessments is your responsibility.  You must not permit another student access to your work.

Where referencing is required, unless otherwise stated, the Harvard referencing system must be used. Please refer to your Programme Guide and or the library book ‘Cite them Right Cite them right: the essential referencing guide’ By Richard Pears.

Reshoring

In recent years, the concept of ‘reshoring’ has gained impetus, with governments and business’s showing an increased interest into the possibility of returning manufacturing capability to their  ‘home turf’. This is especially so in the USA and as outlined in the paper ‘Boeing’s offshoring woes: seven lessons every CEO must learn’ (Denning, 2013), many ‘offshoring’ decisions made in the  90’s  and the 2000’s are now being questioned by governments and multi-nationals.

Your task is to write a critical evaluation which assesses whether ‘offshoring’ has been a success or otherwise and whether more  companies will now start to consider ‘reshoring’ as an option to outsourcing their manufacturing capability to ’low cost economies’.

Your brief is to discuss and assess:

1.    What is meant by the terms ‘reshoring’ and ‘offshoring’ ?

2.    What was seen as the key advantages and the now realised disadvantages of ‘offshoring’ manufacturing operations to countries such as: Eastern Europe, India and China?

3.    The potential benefits of ‘reshoring’, for both companies and national economies and what type of industries are most likely to benefit most or transition more easily.

4.    What strategies or approaches might be adopted by governments and agencies to facilitate and enable this change ?

As this is a research (literature) based report you need to ensure that all statements, conclusions and discussions are adequately  supported by suitable references. I would expect between 25-30 references for a report of this size.

Word count: 2500 words +/- 10%.

Your answers should be supported by relevant reference material. You will need to demonstrate a wide reading around the subject, with good marks being awarded for well argued, structured answers that are supported by the relevant literature. You need to demonstrate a clear understanding of the key concepts applicable to the question and also be able to critically appraise your position/answer, especially when conflicting views have been shown to exist. Your sources must be referenced correctly within the text and any quotations used must
be for illustrative purposes only.