International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications

From Globalization to Regionalization: Rethinking Logistics and Supply Chain Operations

Over the past several decades, globalization has profoundly reshaped the design and operation of logistics and supply chains (Zinn & Goldsby, 2020; Chen et al., 2026; Ali Soomro & Khan, 2026). Firms have increasingly organized sourcing, production, and distribution activities across national borders, creating geographically dispersed supply networks that capitalize on differences in production costs, resource availability, specialization, and economies of scale (Chen et al., 2026; Ali Soomro & Khan, 2026). Global sourcing, production offshoring, manufacturing consolidation, and international logistics have consequently become central elements of firms’ competitive strategies (Chan & Choi, 2024; Branstetter et al., 2026). While such arrangements have enabled substantial efficiency gains and facilitated the development of highly integrated global supply chains, they have also increased interdependencies among suppliers, manufacturers, logistics providers, transportation infrastructure, and markets across different countries and regions (Hu et al., 2026). As a result, disruptions originating in one part of a global network can propagate rapidly across geographical and organizational boundaries.

More recently, however, the economic and institutional environment underpinning this globalization-oriented model has undergone substantial change. Geopolitical tensions, trade disputes, tariffs and export controls, disruptions to international transportation, pandemic-related shocks, and growing concerns over the security and continuity of critical supplies have encouraged firms and governments to reconsider the geographical configuration of supply chains (Niu et al., 2025; Xu et al., 2026; Cai et al., 2026). Meanwhile, industrial policies, regional trade arrangements, sustainability requirements, and technological developments are altering the relative attractiveness of global, regional, and local sourcing and production (Ma et al., 2025; Liu et al., 2025; Krisnanmoorthy et al., 2026; Jackson et al., 2026). Against this backdrop, strategies such as reshoring, nearshoring, friend-shoring, regionalization, supplier diversification, and strategic inventory positioning have attracted increasing attention as firms seek alternative ways to organize their supply chains (Kouvelis et al., 2025).

These developments make deglobalization an increasingly important topic for logistics and supply chain research (Cao et al., 2025; Giacomin & Romagnoli, 2025). Importantly, deglobalization should not be interpreted simply as the disappearance or reversal of globalization. Rather, it represents a broader process of global supply chain reconfiguration, through which firms reassess where and from whom to source, where to locate production and distribution capacity, how to allocate inventory and resources across regions, and how goods should move through increasingly complex transportation networks (Guercini et al., 2025; Yücesan, 2025). Such reconfiguration fundamentally changes the operational trade-offs facing firms. Decisions that were traditionally dominated by cost, scale, and efficiency considerations must increasingly incorporate resilience, responsiveness, supply security, geopolitical exposure, sustainability, and operational flexibility. Recent studies have begun to examine different dimensions of these changes, including supply chain restructuring, sourcing and production relocation, disruption and geopolitical risks, sustainability, and the changing role of technologies in supply chain management.

Despite this growing interest, several important research gaps remain. First, much of the discussion surrounding deglobalization has focused on macroeconomic, geopolitical, or strategic considerations, while its implications for specific logistics and operational decisions remain less systematically understood. Translating changes in the global trading environment into decisions concerning sourcing, facility location, capacity allocation, transportation, inventory, and supplier management requires further theoretical and methodological development. Second, existing research often examines individual responses (such as reshoring, supplier diversification, or inventory buffering) in isolation. In practice, these decisions are highly interconnected: relocating production changes transportation flows and lead times, which in turn affects inventory positioning, logistics capacity, service performance, and environmental impacts. A more integrated understanding of supply chain reconfiguration is therefore needed. Third, the benefits of deglobalization-oriented strategies are unlikely to be universal. Their effectiveness depends on industry characteristics, supply network structures, market conditions, disruption exposure, and institutional environments. More empirical evidence is required to identify when and under what conditions different reconfiguration strategies generate operational and economic value. Finally, the potential of artificial intelligence, digital technologies, and advanced analytics to support supply chain reconfiguration under geopolitical and market uncertainty remains insufficiently explored. 

This Special Issue therefore focuses on the logistics and operational foundations of supply chain reconfiguration in an era of deglobalization. It seeks to connect macro-level transformations in international trade and geopolitical environments with firm-level and network-level operational decisions. Particular attention will be given to reshoring, nearshoring and regionalization; global versus regional sourcing and production; supply chain network redesign and capacity allocation; supplier diversification and procurement; transportation network reconfiguration; inventory positioning and strategic buffers; and resilience under geopolitical and trade uncertainty. The Special Issue also welcomes research examining how artificial intelligence, digital technologies, and advanced analytics can enable more adaptive, visible, and data-driven supply chain reconfiguration.

The novelty of this Special Issue lies in positioning deglobalization not merely as an external disruption or macroeconomic trend, but as a new decision context for logistics and supply chain operations. By bringing together analytical modeling, optimization, simulation, empirical and econometric analysis, data-driven methods, case studies, and interdisciplinary perspectives, the Special Issue aims to develop a more integrated understanding of how global supply chains are being redesigned and operated. For the research community, it provides a platform for bridging traditionally separated streams on global supply networks, resilience, sourcing, transportation, inventory, sustainability, and digital transformation. For practitioners, it seeks to generate actionable insights into how firms can evaluate alternative supply chain configurations and balance cost efficiency with resilience, security, responsiveness, sustainability, and flexibility. Ultimately, the Special Issue aims to advance both theory and practice by developing new frameworks, evidence, and decision-support approaches for managing logistics and supply chains in an increasingly fragmented, uncertain, and regionally differentiated global environment.

This special issue invites research on following themes, but not limited to:

• Reshoring, nearshoring, friend-shoring, and regionalization of supply chains
• Global versus regional/local sourcing and production strategies
• Supply chain network redesign, facility location, and capacity allocation under deglobalization
• Supplier diversification, multi-sourcing, and procurement strategies under geopolitical uncertainty
• Geopolitical risks, trade barriers, tariffs, and export controls in logistics and supply chain operations
• Transportation network redesign and changing international freight flows under supply chain regionalization
• Supply chain resilience, inventory positioning, and strategic buffers in reconfigured supply networks
• Digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics for supply chain reconfiguration and risk management

Guest editors’ biographies

Benedict Jun Ma is an Assistant Professor in the Intelligent Transportation Thrust at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), where he is leading the Intelligent Logistics and Supply Chain Analytics (iLSCA) Lab. He received his PhD from The University of Hong Kong and was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT. His works have been published in journals such as MIT Sloan Management Review, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, Computers in Industry, and Transportation Research Part D/Part E, as well as widely read practitioner outlets such as Supply Chain Management Review. He has been a lead guest editor for journals such as International Journal of Production Research and International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems.

Xiaoyan (Kelly) Xu is a Lecturer in the University of Southampton Business School. Her research interests focus on marketing and operations interfaces, sustainable supply chain management, and supply chain digitalisation. She has published research papers in leading journals such as Production and Operations Management, Decision Sciences, IISE Transactions, IEEE Transactions (various), International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Transportation Research Part E, etc.

T. C. Edwin Cheng is Dean of PolyU Business School, Fung Yiu King-Wing Hang Bank Professor in Business Administration, and Chair Professor of Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He obtained a B.Sc. [Eng] (first class honours) from the University of Hong Kong; an M.Sc. from the University of Birmingham, U.K.; and a Ph.D. and an Sc.D. from the University of Cambridge, U.K. He has previously taught in Canada, England, and Singapore. Prof. Cheng's research interests are in Operations Management and Operations Research. He has published over 1,100 SCI/SSCI papers in such journals as California Management Review, Journal of Operations Management, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, MIS Quarterly, Operations Research, Organisation Science, and Production and Operations Management. He has co-authored 17 books published by Chapman and Hall, McGraw-Hill, and Springer. He received the Outstanding Young Engineer of the Year Award from the Institute of Industrial Engineers, U.S.A., in 1992 and the Croucher Award (the top research award in Hong Kong) in 2001. He was elected Academician of The International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences in 2016 and Fellow of The Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2018. According to Google Scholar, he has received over 70,000 citations and his h-index is 119. A registered professional engineer and a seasoned management consultant, Prof. Cheng has over the years secured more than HK$50 million in research funding from both public and private sectors to support his diverse research programmes.

Chi To Ng is a Professor in the Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He obtained his PhD degree from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include optimisation, supply chain management, operations management, scheduling, health care management, etc. He has published over 170 papers in prestigious international journals, such as Production and Operations Management, Naval Research Logistics, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Operations Research Letters, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Economics, and Computers and Operations Research, among others.

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