Track: Case Studies

Abstract

The recent version of the European Manufacturing Survey (EMS) responses was captured in Finland by asking companies' CEOs or cognizant personnel (n=123) to respond. This study aims to report the results of the following Development of Competitiveness and Employment Situations (DCES) covering Annual Turnover (AT), Number of Employees (NE), Manufacturing Capacity Utilization (MCU), Return on Sales (ROS) concerning corporations' operations: Relocation Activities (RAs) converging to Offshoring Manufacturing Performance (OMP), Backshoring Foreign Manufacturing (BFM); Offshoring R&D (ORD); and Backshoring Foreign R&D (BFRD). The defined research question, "How do the DCES and RAs relate?" was answered by seeking influences directly for AT and NE corresponding to all RAs positively except negative BFRD. Large corporations can be said OMP, but the sample also has smaller companies those that BFM. The reason for BFM could be the decreased ROS with a statistically significant negative impact during the COVID-19 fiscal year 2021.