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Currently, in various reports, Chile has been receiving better rankings than other Latin American countries, identifying it as a nation for offshoring many of the business process outsourcing (BPO) and information and communication technology (ICT)‐related services. So, it has become important to analyze the Chilean ICT sector and the maturity of the outsourcing industry internally, to consider Chile as an ICT outsourcing destination. This paper seeks to address this matter.

A survey questionnaire is developed based on the ICT outsourcing literature, prior empirical research and outsourcing case studies. This questionnaire is translated into Spanish and distributed to CIOs of the 200 largest companies in Chile. The responses from the CIOs are used as the proxy measures and are analyzed for evaluation.

This study is conducted to understand and analyze the strategy adopted by Chilean companies to evaluate the need for ICT outsourcing. Also, the outsourcing capabilities and productively leveraging the built‐up local ICT capability are analyzed. The results of the study show that the vendor availability and contractibility are considered very important relative to a clear understanding of internal ICT cost structures in Chilean industry.

Although the responses give a general sense to guide the researcher in the right direction, the low‐response rate to the survey hampered the study in obtaining robust results.

The study shows that Chilean CIOs are clearly familiar with outsourcing evaluation issues but lack environmental support in terms of legal and business tools and mechanics to build a stronger ICT industry.

This paper is one of very few research studies that have been conducted on Chile.

Companies have traditionally relied on taking advantage of price‐quantity discount (PQD) on large purchases. With the adoption of just‐in‐time (JIT) philosophy companies are encouraged to purchase materials in small lots to synchronize production with deliveries. This raised a question whether PQD is applicable in a JIT purchasing environment. Argues that though seemingly inconsistent, JIT and PQD can coexist. Develops an integrated JIT‐PQD model to allow a buyer to decide how much to purchase and how many shipments be placed per order.

Earlier research showed through an empirical study of 60 US manufacturing companies that manufacturing proactiveness especially through investments in structural programs coupled with either high levels of manufacturing involvement or planned investments in infrastructural programs correlate with higher than average performance. To test and report if the same perception and practices are found in a developing country, here the same study is conducted in the developing country of Thailand. The results from 49 companies studied were mixed. They have not supported the findings in the developed country. Further analysis showed, in some cases, the findings are contradictory to prior results.

This study aims to reconcile the contradictory findings of multiple directorships (MD) and its impact on firm performance. The present work incorporates the industry experience of busy directors into the picture and examines its impact on firm performance.

Data are collected for 345 non-financial National Stock Exchange listed firms from Bloomberg, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ProwessIQ database and company annual reports from the financial year 2008–2009 to 2017–2018. The industry and year fixed effect panel regression models are used for both business group and non-business group (NBG) firms.

The study reconciled the contradictory findings between MD and the performance of a firm. The results claim that firms having non-executive directors on board with similar industry experience positively influence the firm performance while board having non-executive directors with diverse industry experience establish an adverse relationship. The results are similar for both group affiliated and non-group affiliated firms in India. Further analysis through interaction effect reveals that the presence of more busy outside directors on board irrespective of their industry experience, i.e. similar or diverse, reduces the performance of a NBG affiliated firm.

The findings of the study contribute to the existing literature and tries to establish a strong argument for MD by incorporating industry experience. The present work considers non-financial listed firms, while financial firms and industry experience of outside directors in other emerging economies can be studied to draw additional insights into the existing literature.

Both regulatory bodies and firms should consider the industry experience of non-executive directors for enhancing firm performance.

Existing studies highlight the contradictory arguments for MD and firm performance. The current study incorporates the industry experience of non-executive directors, either in a similar or diverse industry, for the empirical analysis to reconcile the contradictory findings. The present work suggests that a firm should appoint non-executive directors with similar industry experience to enhance firm performance.

This study aims to investigate the machining performance of CVD-coated carbide tools by considering most crucial machinability aspects: cutting force, tool life, surface roughness and chip morphology in high-speed hard turning of AISI 4340 alloy steel under a sustainable minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) environment.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the performance of coated carbide tools under MQL environment therefore, machining tests were performed in accordance with the Taguchi L9 orthogonal array, accommodating the three crucial machining parameters such as cutting speed (V = 300–400 m/min), feed rate (F = 0.1–0.2 mm/rev) and depth of cut (DOC = 0.2–0.4 mm). The measured or calculated values obtained in each experimental run were validated for normality assumptions before drawing any statistical inferences. Taguchi signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and analysis of variance methodologies were used to examine the effect of machining variables on the performance outcomes.

The quantitative analysis revealed that the depth of cut exerted the most significant influence on cutting force, with a contributing rate of 60.72%. Cutting speed was identified as the primary variable affecting the tool life, exhibiting a 47.58% contribution, while feed rate had the most dominating impact on surface roughness, with an overall contributing rate of 89.95%. The lowest cutting force (184.55 N) and the longest tool life (7.10 min) were achieved with low machining parameters at V = 300 m/min, F = 0.1 mm/rev, DOC = 0.2 mm. Conversely, the lowest surface roughness (496 nm) was achieved with high cutting speed, low feed rate and moderate depth of cut at V = 400 m/min, F = 0.1 mm/rev and DOC = 0.3 mm. Moreover, the microscopic examination of the chips revealed a serrated shape formation under all machining conditions. However, the degree of serration increased with an incremental raise with cutting speed and feed rate.

The study is limited to study the effect of machining parameters within the stated range of cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut as well as other parameters.

Practitioners may consider to adopt this machining technique to create more sustainable working environment as well as eliminate the disposal cost of the used metal cutting fluid.

By applying this machining technique, diseases caused by metal cutting fluid to the mechanist will be significantly reduced, therefore creating better lifestyles.

Hard turning is commonly carried out with advanced cutting tools such as ceramics, cubic boron nitride and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride to attain exceptional surface finish. However, the high cost of these tools necessitates exploration of alternative approaches. Therefore, this study investigates the potential of using cost-effective, multilayer-coated carbide tools under MQL conditions to achieve comparable surface quality.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2024-0013/