Knowledge Management in the Livestock Industry

William Afedu Annan

University of Phoenix

Knowledge and Self-management in the Livestock Industry

The branch of philosophy which is concerned with nature and scope of knowledge and deals with the acquisition of knowledge with reference to any particular subject matter is termed as epistemology. Epistemology is a study which is connected to the notion of truth, belief and justification. These assertions are supported by Powell (2001) who postulated that epistemology is a study of knowledge in terms of what is known and how we know it. According to Powell, the role of epistemology is basically to probe the justifiability of knowledge-claiming itself. The philosopher Plato defined knowledge as justified true belief and according to Moser and vander Nat (2003), knowledge is related to belief and although knowledge requires belief, belief does not require knowledge. Aristotle and other medieval philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Hume expressed the view that the thoughts that go on in an individual’s mind are objects of belief. Self-management is the total absence of formal hierarchy in the work place, where the functions of the manager such as; planning, coordinating, controlling, staffing and directing are taken up by the individual knowledge-workers. This assertion is supported by Chiaburu, Baker and Pitariu (2006), who postulated that self-management, is the degree to which individual workers retrieve information and resources and plan for career problem-solving and decision-making in an organization. When self-management is developed in an organization, it creates a working environment which has a high supervisory culture and good work ethics, because all the employees are knowledgeable and know what to do and what not to do. These self-managed workers, take