Science in retrospect (stages of my scientific sphere development)

I am municipal manager by profession and specialize in the issues of state border management (SBM). My dissertation is devoted to customs staff management system. The choice of this subject is motivated by the fact that state border management has always been the subject of prime importance for state security and budget. Before technological growth in the 1990s, the Russian SBM was conducted in an out-of-date way, which involved a great amount of red tape, a lot of staff and problems with statistical counts.

With the advancement of information technologies the situation has begun to change to the better. A lot of money was invested into database creation, and information exchange between the Federal services and the people concerned. Unfortunately, these innovations were not extremely successful and there still remain many problems in the need of a proper solution. One of the causes of these problems is permanent growth of tourist flows and inability of the staff to cope with them efficiently.

  Let me give you an example of urgent problems at the Russian-Finnish border. Russian ports of entry are usually crowded with cars and buses. You are to stay in a queue for hours. If SBM was better organized, with due attention paid to the solution of logistics and staff problems, the situation could change and all the tourists would be more satisfied with their trips abroad. Comparison of the foreign SBM prototypes and our systems of management adds competitive mechanism to SBM development.

In my research I am trying to approach the solution of the above problems from the consideration of skills and competences which staff is supposed to possess. Generally, professionals of my sphere need to develop communication skills, human skills, computer skills, time-management skills, and technical skills. Well-grounded recommendations on staff competence growth will be my contribution to the SBM improvement.

 

State of science development in my field of knowledge

Every scientist should know the development stages of his (her) research object, and be aware of its methods of analysis. So I’m going to study current state of science development in my sphere of knowledge.    

My specialty is management. Today, much of the management research conducted in academic institutions blends the notion of management as both art and science. As computer technology continues to improve, the ability of management researchers to conduct sophisticated analyses has also been enhanced. The perspective of management as a science, however, indicates that management skills can be taught through understanding the theory and principles of management.

   Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Management encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human financial, technological and natural resources. However, in the 21st century observers find it increasingly difficult to subdivide management into functional categories in this way. More and more processes simultaneously involve several categories. Instead, one tends to think in terms of the various processes, tasks, and objects subject to management.

Management as science indicates that in practice, managers use a specific body of information and facts to guide their behaviors, but management as art requires no specific body of knowledge, only skill. Noted researcher Thomas Kuhn, in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, addresses issues associated with the state of current scientific research and the opportunities for scientific discovery.