Knowledge Management: Higher Production and Competitiveness. Prospects for Ovine and Caprine Production Systems

Abstract

Nowadays sheep are presented as a promising species for the livestock sector in Colombia, with an awakening of the activity manifested by an increase in inventory, which, according to FAOSTAT (debatable data), increased from 2,40000 head in 2000 to 3,40000 in 2008; on the other hand, goats went from 1,20000 head to 1,30000 head during the same period, thus showing an increase, albeit at a slower pace than with sheep. According to this da-tabase, the same trend is observed in per capita consumption of ovine/caprine meat, which went from 270 g/person/year in 2000 to 370 g/person/year in 2008. This increase in inventory and per capita consumption of lamb and goat meat drives the need to make the most of not only the comparative advantages, but also the generation of competitive advantages that lead the Colombian sheep and goat-culture through the road of competitiveness and globalization, taking advantage of opportunities in the national and export market. The effective use of these benefits involves the incorporation of data, information and knowledge as factors of production within an orderly process under the framework of a “knowledge management” system. This paper addresses a series of theoretical foundations upon which the way data, information and knowledge are transformed into productivity and competitiveness are discussed; the issue of the “Big Bang” is addressed, as are the issues of entropy and negentropy, complexity, systems theory, the theory of knowledge, epistemology, management, knowledge economy, strategic planning, the spiral of knowledge in organizations, and knowledge management, aiming to find some approaches to the agricultural sector and the contextualization of knowledge management in the Colombian sheep and goat-culture.