Indigenous Knowledge Management Framework for Coffee Production in Ethiopia

Abstract

The paper discourses about the importance of Knowledge, specifically the indigenous type, to the Ethiopian economy in agriculture sector. The study identifies the sources where the indigenous knowledge resides and examines the current knowledge sharing culture between different stakeholders in relation to coffee production; then adapts different concepts from pre designed allied Knowledge Management(KM) models to design an Indigenous Knowledge Management Framework(IKMF) tailored to Ethiopian context. Qualitative approach is used to investigate existing gaps that may likely be initiated by different contextual attributes. This investigation substantiated by different sources to gather data, analyze and finally developed an IKMF that encompasses a cyclic Indigenous knowledge model with six states of create, validate, store, share, innovate, and validate with the consideration of different variables extracted from collected data.