Mapping the Intellectual Structure of Friendshoring Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of Production Relocation Literatur

English (OpenAlex)

Recent geopolitical tensions, pandemic-related disruptions and changes in global value chains haveincreased academic and policy interest in friendshoring and related production-relocation strategies. This studyexamines the development, intellectual foundations, conceptual structure and geographical distribution of theliterature on friendshoring, reshoring, nearshoring, backshoring and China Plus One through a bibliometricanalysis of Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus records. The initial dataset comprised 753 WoS and 1,042 Scopusrecords. After three repeated titles in WoS and nine in Scopus were consolidated, 750 and 1,033 unique titlesremained, respectively. Title-based matching identified 600 publications indexed in both databases, yielding anintegrated corpus of 1,183 unique publications. Performance analysis examined publication growth, sourceproductivity, influential publications, citation impact and country participation, while author-keyword analysis ofWoS metadata was used to assess the conceptual structure. The findings show that publication activity acceleratedsubstantially after 2020 and that the field remains intellectually rooted in the established reshoring and offshoringliterature. “Reshoring,” “offshoring,” “nearshoring” and “backshoring” form the core conceptual structure,whereas “global value chain,” “manufacturing,” “COVID-19,” “sustainability,” “Industry 4.0” and “industrialpolicy” link production relocation to resilience, technological change and geopolitics. The geographicaldistribution is led by the United States and several European countries, while Türkiye has limited visibility.Friendshoring therefore appears to be an emerging extension of the production-relocation literature rather than anentirely new research field. The study concludes by outlining directions for future research on friendshoring andTürkiye