Wei Tan

Digital transformation has reshaped corporate strategy, increasing technological complexity and strategic uncertainty. Traditional corporate governance research, which emphasizes monitoring and control, provides limited explanation of how boards influence strategic adaptation in digitally intensive environments. This study develops a conceptual framework linking corporate governance and strategic management through board digital capability. Integrating agency theory, resource dependence theory, and upper echelons theory, the framework identifies three mechanisms—monitoring enhancement, resource provision, and cognitive framing—through which board digital capability shapes strategic adaptability and digital transformation. The study advances propositions suggesting that technologically competent boards improve strategic alignment, innovation orientation, and long-term competitiveness, particularly in high-technology industries. By reconceptualizing boards as strategic enablers rather than purely monitoring bodies, this research bridges governance and strategy scholarship and offers a capability-based perspective on corporate governance in the digital era.

Individual brand value has become a strategic asset in contemporary organizations, yet existing research has predominantly relied on linear models to explain its formation. Such approaches assume additive and proportional effects, potentially oversimplifying the complex and contingent nature of brand development. This study introduces a Random Forest framework to examine how organizational structure, market positioning, and social–cultural context jointly shape individual brand value. Using survey data from 318 participants, the predictive performance of the Random Forest model is compared with that of a traditional multiple linear regression model. The results show that the Random Forest model achieves substantially higher explanatory power (R² = 0.72) than the linear benchmark (R² = 0.54), indicating that non-linear relationships and higher-order interactions play a central role in brand formation. Permutation-based importance analysis reveals a hierarchical pattern in which market positioning variables, particularly visibility and differentiation, exert the strongest influence, followed by organizational structure and social–cultural context. These findings suggest that individual brand value is not the linear accumulation of internal attributes but an emergent outcome of externally visible differentiation, conditionally enabled by organizational arrangements and socially interpreted within cultural environments. Methodologically, the study demonstrates how machine learning can complement theory-driven models by uncovering structural regularities that remain invisible under linear assumptions. The results call for a pluralistic analytical approach capable of aligning empirical methods with the complexity of organizational life.

Digital transformation is reshaping educational systems worldwide, creating new challenges for school leadership and organizational sustainability. However, existing research often examines digital leadership, teacher well-being, and school performance separately, leaving limited theoretical understanding of their integrated relationships. This study proposes a conceptual framework linking digital leadership, teacher well-being, and sustainable school performance. Drawing upon leadership and motivation theories, the framework suggests that digital leadership influences school sustainability both directly and indirectly through teacher well-being. The study highlights the importance of human-centered leadership practices in managing technological change and sustaining institutional performance. The proposed model offers theoretical guidance for future empirical studies and provides practical implications for educational leaders seeking to balance digital innovation with teacher support to achieve long-term school development.

Individual brand value has become a strategic asset in contemporary organizations, yet existing research has predominantly relied on linear models to explain its formation. Such approaches assume additive and proportional effects, potentially oversimplifying the complex and contingent nature of brand development. This study introduces a Random Forest framework to examine how organizational structure, market positioning, and social–cultural context jointly shape individual brand value. Using survey data from 318 participants, the predictive performance of the Random Forest model is compared with that of a traditional multiple linear regression model. The results show that the Random Forest model achieves substantially higher explanatory power (R² = 0.72) than the linear benchmark (R² = 0.54), indicating that non-linear relationships and higher-order interactions play a central role in brand formation. Permutation-based importance analysis reveals a hierarchical pattern in which market positioning variables, particularly visibility and differentiation, exert the strongest influence, followed by organizational structure and social–cultural context. These findings suggest that individual brand value is not the linear accumulation of internal attributes but an emergent outcome of externally visible differentiation, conditionally enabled by organizational arrangements and socially interpreted within cultural environments. Methodologically, the study demonstrates how machine learning can complement theory-driven models by uncovering structural regularities that remain invisible under linear assumptions. The results call for a pluralistic analytical approach capable of aligning empirical methods with the complexity of organizational life.

Organizations are increasingly required to achieve sustainable performance that integrates long-term growth with environmental and social responsibility. Although strategic management quality is widely viewed as essential, the mechanism through which it shapes sustainable outcomes remains unclear. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 468 middle- and senior-level managers from multiple industries in China. Strategic management quality, decision quality, and sustainable performance were measured using validated scales. Data were analyzed using SPSS and Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 4) with 5,000 bootstrap samples. Strategic management quality was positively associated with both decision quality and sustainable performance. Decision quality was strongly related to sustainable performance and partially mediated the effect of strategic management quality. The indirect effect was significant. Strategic management enhances sustainability primarily by improving how organizations make decisions. Decision quality serves as a micro-level mechanism translating strategy into durable performance.

Moral education in Singapore, ever since political independence, has been pragmatically aimed at forging together, by promoting shared values, the four major racial and cultural communities which at various stages had threatened to polarise. It has also been used for preserving a cultural and national identity against the perceived erosion of Asian roots by Western education. Social cohesion and moral ballast have been seen as instrumental towards a strong economy, including the attraction of foreign investors. In these ways, moral education has been regarded as a means for nation‐building. In its implementation, it has been considered necessary to teach Asian values and preserve cultural identities via transmission of the mother tongues of the respective races. Religions have also been recognised as being important for moral ballast and effectiveness. This article surveys the implementation of these policies in Singaporean education, and at the same time indicates areas of possible tension and internal contradiction, and where questionable assumptions may have been made. Explanations are suggested for the perceived ineffectiveness in cultural and moral transmission. Strengths of the policies are also indicated and appraised.

This paper shows that Confucian morality satisfies the conditions of a holistic moral education, involving moral understanding, commitment and will, motivation and sentiments. Its basic principles of interpersonal relations are universally acknowledged ones, such as justice, truthfulness, equality and liberty. It stresses commitment to and practice of these principles by advocating virtues of character such as wisdom, courage, trust and love. The latter two involve sincerity and right motivation, requiring doing the morally right for the right reasons. They also require doing the morally right with the appropriate human sentiment.1 1. I owe many of the source references of this paper to the secondary school textbooks in Confucian Ethics prepared by the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore. I have also benefited from being in the team that wrote the textbooks.

It is an important concern for Kant to render the metaphysics to transition from the speculative to the practical domain. In the second edition preface of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant stated that we can securely guide the metaphysics along the path of a science through a revolution in the philosophy, in which the revolution is generally called Copernican Revolution. Since Kant divided metaphysics into metaphysics of nature and of morals, the revolution for the path of a science should aim not merely at metaphysics of nature but also at metaphysics of morals. However, the critique of the traditional metaphysics of nature does not directly lead to the systematic construction of the metaphysics of morals. It contains a transition. Yet, we cannot reach this transition based on the classical understanding of the Copernican Revolution, which disregards the historical context in astronomy. To contextualize the revolution within Kant's philosophy, we will reveal the essence of the Kantian Copernican Revolution. It shows that the essence of the revolution should not be a reversal of cognition and objects but a transformation in the cognitive faculties itself. Through the new interpretation of the Copernican Revolution we can illustrate how did Kant achieve the transition. It presents as a progressively practical transformation process and ultimately provides the groundwork for constructing the metaphysics of morals.

SummaryIn 1684, during the Edo period (1603–1868), the imperial court of Japan passed a reform act that resulted in a new almanac called the Jôkyô almanac. This was the first reform in more than eight hundred years, and marked a departure from the past practice of adopting almanacs from China. Yet, the reform was complicated, and it was achieved after decades through the efforts of Shibukawa Harumi (1639–1715). How was the reform accomplished, and why was it significant? In this study, I will focus on Harumi's role in the reform. I propose to examine the reform as the culmination of a process deeply linked to Harumi's political connections and his intellectual growth especially in the field of calendrical sciences. I will show that this approach of looking at the reform by analyzing different aspects of Harumi's life has implications for understanding trends in society in seventeenth-century Japan. First, despite the ban on Christianity, intellectuals like Harumi assimilated European sciences in unique ways. Second, Harumi's activities exemplified how intellectual ties were increasingly embedded within political networks. Overall, I will argue that the reform of the almanac, viewed as a process surrounding the core figure of Harumi, was driven by scientific goals and personal ambitions.

THE ARTICLE ARGUES THAT RECENT ATTEMPTS, TO REFUTE THE NEO-HUMEAN CONTENTION 1. THAT MIRACLES CONSIDERED AS VIOLATIONS OF NATURAL LAWS ARE IN PRINCIPLE UNIDENTIFIABLE, AND 2. THAT IN ANY CASE CRITICAL HISTORY WOULD ALWAYS RULE AGAINST ACCEPTING PURPORTED EVIDENCES FOR MIRACLES, ARE UNSUCCESSFUL EVEN THOUGH SUGGESTIVE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. THEY EITHER EVADE THE ISSUE, OR FAIL TO FULLY COGNISE THE PURPORT OF THE CONTENTION. IT IS THEN ARGUED THAT ONCE MIRACLES ARE CONSIDERED WITHIN THEIR RELIGIOUS CONTEXT, SITUATIONS COULD BE ENVISAGED WHERE THE NEO-HUMEAN POSITION WOULD BE UNDULY SCEPTICAL

In his paper ‘The Problem of the Meaning of “Miracle” , Professor Michael J. Langford proffers a concept of miracles that derives its intelligibility from the familiar phenomenon of the interaction of minds. Miraculous occurrences are portrayed as a variant, though abnormal, form of what we may term ‘inter-psychosomatic influence’, God's mind being the ultimate determinant. Langford thinks that to speak significantly of miracles, the phenomenon should be understood as ‘not totally dissimilar to our previous experience’ ; hence the familiar notion of inter-psychosomatic influence. He thinks, too, that to talk of miracles as God interfering directly with the natural order would be to admit that such interference would not upset our concept of human nature and responsibility, a consequence which, to Langford, would make it inconsistent for Christians to maintain the free-will defence in the face of the problem of evil. According to Langford, human interference with the natural order does not vitiate the preconditions of human responsibility, and so he thinks that his concept of miracle, which is only ‘an extension of the same phenomenon, of a kind that also does not disrupt either human freedom or the stable order that is the necessary context for human life’ , will provide a way out of the dilemma. Having agreed with Hume and Flew that it would be unreasonable ‘to explain an unusual event by introducing divine causation if we hadn't already got independent evidence for the divine’ , Langford nevertheless maintains that ‘unthought possibilities’ should not be ruled out in the manner of a ‘prejudiced theorist’ . He thinks that such possibilities are left open in his concept of miracle, which makes the prior assumption that ‘independent grounds for belief in God’ exist before affirming that, given that God exists, miracles may be consistently and substantively understood in terms of a special distinguishable sort of inter-psychosomatic influence. He concedes, of course that his concept would rule out ‘those miracles that appear to be quite apart from the working of grace through human minds’ . I think, however, that Langford's thesis is faulty at key places

This is a brief review of the Civics and Moral Education programme currently in use in Singapore schools. The paper offers an appraisal of the rationale provided in policy statements and of selected official and students' workbook descriptions of curricular content, activities and pedagogic theories. It shows that the Civics and Moral Education programme is more a matter of training students to absorb pragmatic values deemed to be important for Singapore to achieve social cohesion and economic success, rather than moral education as the development of intrinsic commitment to and habituation in the practice of values, defended on autonomous moral considerations and not mere national expediency. Whilst educationists would be inclined to take issue with the programme's ultimate stand on values, they might warm to the pedagogy it prescribes in terms of the need for character-building by practice and experience, and also the importance of reasoning in the resolving of disputes and dilemmas