Approximation to the social structure of swine health and production research in Colombia

Abstract

Objectives: To characterize the organizational patterns in the swine health and production research systems in Colombia. Design/methodology/approach: The social networks approach was used to analyze the associative pairing of a prominent community of researchers in the field of swine health and production in Colombia, considering scientific studies generated between 2010 and 2018. Results: The swine research network in Colombia has a circumstantial growth, incipient behavior, and is highly centralized, delimiting the research narrative and generating a normal distribution in the transitivity of the network. Limitations on study/implications: The sample analyzed was by convenience and determined to a number of scientific studies, so it would be necessary to broaden considerably the population and the period analyzed. Visualizing and measuring this social structure could allow managing risks and opportunities for the local swine farming sector. Findings/conclusions: The social density and the values of structural centrality obtained reflect an organizational model that replicates the global production model: limited information flows and partially connected structures, highly centralized and with low variability in their information channels and knowledge exchange in a highly strategic sector.