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Bayesian cubature (BC) has emerged to be one of most competitive approach for estimating the multi-dimensional integral especially when the integrand is expensive to evaluate, and alternative acquisition functions, such as the Posterior Variance Contribution (PVC) function, have been developed for adaptive experiment design of the integration points. However, those sequential design strategies also prevent BC from being implemented in a parallel scheme. Therefore, this paper aims at developing a parallelized adaptive BC method to further improve the computational efficiency.

By theoretically examining the multimodal behavior of the PVC function, it is concluded that the multiple local maxima all have important contribution to the integration accuracy as can be selected as design points, providing a practical way for parallelization of the adaptive BC. Inspired by the above finding, four multimodal optimization algorithms, including one newly developed in this work, are then introduced for finding multiple local maxima of the PVC function in one run, and further for parallel implementation of the adaptive BC.

The superiority of the parallel schemes and the performance of the four multimodal optimization algorithms are then demonstrated and compared with the k-means clustering method by using two numerical benchmarks and two engineering examples.

Multimodal behavior of acquisition function for BC is comprehensively investigated. All the local maxima of the acquisition function contribute to adaptive BC accuracy. Parallelization of adaptive BC is realized with four multimodal optimization methods.

Privatization is a complex issue in many developing countries; therefore, it is vital to examine the obstacles that prevent its proper implementation. The goal of this study is to identify and analyze the barriers to private sector investment in the Water and Sewage Industry (WSI) and to suggest effective ways to attract the private investors to this sector.

The obstacles to private sector investment in the WSI were identified by conducting a desktop literature review and interviewing an expert panel, using the fuzzy Delphi technique. The most important barriers were identified and categorized. A structured survey was then developed and distributed to private sector investment experts. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was applied to further examine the responses and to rank the identified barriers.

The results showed that the greatest barrier to privatization is the weakness of insurance companies in controlling investment risks, and the second greatest barrier is the weakness of the country's capitalist culture. A review of recent success stories revealed that these barriers can be overcome with transparent price policies and increased interaction between the public and private sectors, which motivate private investors to invest in the WSI.

The elicitation of this study can be useful to both private and public sectors for the development of infrastructure projects, particularly for the WSI.

This article presents the multi-state stress-strength reliability computation of a component having three states namely, working, deteriorating and failed state.

The probabilistic approach is used to obtain the reliability expression by considering the difference between the values of stress and strength of a component, say, for example, the stress (load) and strength of a power generating unit is in terms of megawatt. The range of values taken by the difference variable determines the various states of the component. The method of maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation is used to obtain the estimators of the parameters and system reliability.

The maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimates of the reliability approach the actual reliability for increasing sample size.

Obtained a new expression for the multi-state stress-strength reliability of a component and the findings are positively supported by presenting the general trend of estimated values of reliability approaching the actual value of reliability.

The purpose of this paper is to present an interview with Professor Michael Beer of Harvard Business School, whose recent book is Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value, to learn what methods these leaders use.

The paper discusses his book, in whihc Beer and his co‐authors studied 36 corporate leaders who are recognized for inspiring their firms to create superior and lasting economic and social value. Beer calls this “higher ambition” management and says it is the key to transforming companies into high commitment, high performance organizations.

Beer and his co‐authors found evidence that creating social value unlocks the dormant creative energies that exist in all employees. Creating both social and economic value directly reinforces the primary motivators of people, purpose, autonomy and mastery.

The authors did not systematically investigate leaders and companies who did not fit the higher ambition (HA) definition. Thus it is impossible to conclude definitively that the HA practices described in the book are distinctive – that they do not also exist in companies that do not fit the HA definition. The authors did, however, use their consulting experience with many companies over many years and interviews with a few CEOs who were not HA leaders to contrast HA leadership practices with “common” and “best practice.”

Beer's advice for rising executives aspiring to become higher‐ambition leaders: find your anchor, choose your teachers and company, learn from experience, and engage in honest conversations.

Beer explains why a leader's higher ambition is essential to creating a resilient and sustainable enterprise and how top CEOs do it.

Managing the corporate reputation of hybrid firms (organizations that act commercially to pursue social agendas) involves particular challenges because of competing stakeholder interests. With reference to the Trappist beer market, the paper seeks to identify the value of message ambiguity in reducing stakeholder tension, while simultaneously achieving a clear market positioning.

In total, 25 in‐depth interviews were conducted with brand marketers, owners, channel buyers, industry representatives and consumers.

The findings demonstrate how ambiguous communications minimize tension between stakeholders. One form of ambiguous message strategy is identified – i.e. the deliberate use of “authenticity” as a positioning device. This positioning allows stakeholders to ascribe conflicting meanings to the Trappist brand, resulting in increased reputation and decreased stakeholder tension.

The use of authenticity and message ambiguity represents one means of balancing stakeholder interests, while achieving a clear market position. The paper believes the findings are particularly relevant for social marketers and managers of highly symbolic brands.

Marketers can reduce stakeholder conflict through the use of brand images that emphasize normative as opposed to performance‐based commitments. Such commitments need to be broad enough to allow different stakeholders to ascribe their own meaning to the brand without diminishing the strength of the firm's market position.

This chapter presents a theory for developing an adaptive high commitment, high performance system of organizing, managing, and leading. It is a synthesis of my 50 years of action and field research presented in my books and articles. It operationalized and makes actionable the ideas of Lewin and systems theorists. Its features are three organizational outcomes that must be achieved simultaneously, features of the system that must be targeted for change, six silent barriers to change, a governance system for continuous learning, change in large complex systems, and elements of a system that needed to immunize it against ultimate destruction.

This “Masterclass” aims to guide executives through three complementary sets of insights into what is fundamentally wrong with the current model of capitalism, and the specific actions that they can take to create long‐term economic and social value.

Three sets of insights are compared: Fixing the Game by Roger Martin; “Creating shared value” in Harvard Business Review by noted strategists Michael Porter and Mark Kramer; and Higher Ambition by Michael Beer and his co‐authors.

Martin tracks the evolution of “shareholder capitalism” during the latter part of the 20th century and explains why it has become so detrimental. Porter and Kramer show business leaders how to restore credibility to capitalism by adopting a view of corporate social responsibility. Beer and his co‐authors explain “why” high performance over time results when business leaders simultaneously create economic and social value.

Some steps that executives can take are: focus – shifting the focus back to the customer and away from shareholder value, turning primary attention back to the real market and away from the expectations market; executive compensation – restoring authenticity to the lives of executives by eliminating stock‐based compensation and creating new models that focus executives on real and meaningful goals; and the civil foundation – defining and institutionalizing a more expansive societal goal for business executives ‐ to be a force that improves the society in which they live and work.

The author synthesizes three sets of cutting edge insight about how to transform a company to achieve long‐term value and social responsibility.

The field of organization development is about change and development of organizational systems. One of the major barriers to system change is organizational silence, the fear of lower level to speak truth to power, and senior leaders' reluctance to seek the truth. Consequently, senior leaders whose role is to orchestrate strategic change that will develop the organization's capabilities do not know the whole truth about their system's capabilities to achieve its purpose and strategy and live to its values. Thirty years of enabling leaders to transform their organization through safe honest, collective, and internally public conversations using a structured process called the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) has led to insights about why such conversations are powerfully transformative. After a brief description of the SFP, this chapter describes insights and supporting grounded data about why honest conversations were transformative when leaders fully embrace the practice and spirit of SFP. These insights were gained from facilitating and observing hundreds of honest conversations in progress. The findings have implications for how leaders aided by consultants can accelerate strategic change that will improve effectiveness and performance while simultaneously transforming trust and commitment.

The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) – a platform by which senior leaders, with the help of consultants, can have an honest, collective, and public conversation about their organization's alignment with espoused strategy and values. The research has identified a syndrome of six silent barriers to effectiveness and a dynamic theory of organizational effectiveness. Empirical evidence from the 20-year study demonstrates that SFP always enables truth to speak to power safely, and in a majority of cases enables senior teams to transform silent barriers into strengths, realign their organization's design and strategic management process with strategy and values, and in a few cases employ SFP as an ongoing learning and governance process. Implications for organization and leadership development and corporate governance are discussed.