Remi Charpin

Purpose: We examine whether US firms use three location strategies—decoupling, diversification, and friendshoring—to de-risk their sourcing portfolios. We investigate how the use of these strategies varies across bilateral (2018 US–China trade war), systemic (COVID-19 pandemic) and alliance-based (Russia–Ukraine war) shocks. We also test whether firms operating in high-tech industries de-risk more aggressively. Design/methodology/approach: Using Panjiva US seaborne import records, we build firm-year measures of the three strategies for 1,565 US firms over 2011–2024. We then estimate fixed-effects models that interact firm's pre-disruption China exposure with the three disruption periods and a high-tech indicator. Findings: Highly China-exposed firms decouple during all three disruptions, with decoupling switching on sharply at the trade war. Diversification activates specifically at the COVID-19 pandemic. Friendshoring peaks during the COVID-19 pandemic and reverses once the war begins. Sourcing portfolios appear more diversified and politically aligned, but these gains vanish once the China sourcing share is excluded, revealing them as mechanical by-products of decoupling. High-tech firms generally do not de-risk more than their peers. Originality/value: We move the study of de-risking from perception-based case evidence to large-scale observed sourcing behavior. We conceptualize decoupling, diversification, and friendshoring as three sourcing location strategies and match each to its most salient disruption type, laying the groundwork for a contingency theory of strategy–shock fit. We further show that portfolio-wide indices of diversification and political alignment may overstate genuine de-risking because they incorporate the effects of decoupling. Moreover, policymakers' ambitions to de-risk high-tech industries and promote friendshoring have generated only a limited corporate response.

Purpose: This paper examines the influence of geopolitical tensions—operationalized as political divergence between governments—on firms’ foreign supply bases and the resulting effects on supply base complexity and sub-tier supplier sharing.Design/methodology/approach: The authors conduct panel data regression analyses over the period 2003–2019 to investigate whether political divergence affects foreign supply bases for 2,858 US firms sourcing from 99 countries and to examine how political divergence exposure impacts the supply network structures of 853 US firms.Findings: Firms reduce their supply bases in countries exposed to heightened geopolitical tensions. These supply chain adjustments are associated with increased supply base complexity and greater sub-tier supplier sharing.Originality/value: This study highlights the importance of state relations in global supply chain reconfiguration. Political divergence between governments provides a dual-view of political risk (i.e. buyer–supplier countries), which can help firms anticipate geopolitical disruptions. While reducing supply bases in foreign countries facing heightened geopolitical tensions is intended to mitigate disruptions, these supply base adjustments are linked to increased supply base complexity and sub-tier supplier sharing, thereby exposing firms to other types of supply disruptions. Additionally, this research contributes to understanding the effects of geopolitical tensions on supply base complexity through the lenses of transaction cost economics and resource dependence theory.

Purpose: This paper examines nationalism as a driver of political risk and how it can lead to supply chain disruptions for foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs).Design/methodology/approach: Conceptual research based on a review of the literature on nationalism and supply chain risk management.Findings: This research unveils how economic nationalism could engender supply chain disruptions via discriminatory practices toward all foreign MNEs and how national animosity may generate additional risks for the MNEs of nations in conflict with one another. These discriminatory practices include an array of host government and grassroots actions targeting foreign MNEs. While economic nationalism and national animosity emanate from within a host country, they may stimulate geopolitical crises outside the host country and thereby affect the international supply chains of foreign MNEs.Research limitations/implications: This research lays the foundation for analytical and empirical researchers to integrate key elements of nationalism into their studies and recommends propositions and datasets to study these notions.Practical implications: This study shows the implications that nationalist drivers of supply chain disruptions have for foreign MNEs and thus can help managers to proactively mitigate such disruptions.Originality/value: This study reveals the importance of integrating notions of national identity and national history in supply chain research, since they play a key role in the emergence of policies and events responsible for supply chain disruptions.

Recent protectionist trends (e.g., trade wars, Brexit) have challenged the stability of the global supply chains (SCs) of multinational corporations. While the SC and operations management (SC/OM) literature has examined how such sources of political risk influence strategic SC/OM decisions at the global level, we know little about how host country political risk influences the SC/OM practices of foreign subunits at the local level. We conducted an exploratory, multiple‐case study of western subunits operating in China to investigate whether managers of foreign subunits in a host country perceive political risk; and if so, how they adapt their SC/OM strategic choices to reduce its impact on their subunits. Our empirical findings suggest that variations in political risk perceptions create different political legitimacy goals that subunits attempt to meet by adapting their supplier development strategies. We induct a process model and identify three archetypes of supplier development strategy—self‐centered, collaborative, and voluntary—adopted by subunits to shape their legitimacy and mitigate political risk. We contribute to the SC/OM literature by theorizing SC/OM managers' perceived political risk, showing how foreign subunits may use supplier development to influence how the host government views them, and by complementing traditional “corporate” legitimacy‐seeking strategies with new “SC/OM” legitimacy‐seeking strategies.