In public policy processes, collective learning among policy actors is important in shaping how these processes unfold and the types of policy outcomes that may result. Despite a widespread interest in learning by policy scholars, researchers face a number of conceptual and theoretical challenges in studying learning across different collective settings within policy processes. In this article, we offer a theoretically grounded approach to defining and understanding collective-level learning. In defining learning, we first draw out the connection between learning processes and learning products, both cognitive and behavioral. In examining learning processes, we further explore the relationship between individual and collective learning. Then we identify and define the key characteristics of collective settings that will likely influence learning processes. We conclude by offering recommendations for policy scholars to apply this approach in studies of learning across diverse policy contexts.

Many of society's most vexing problems must be solved through collaborative arrangements. Growing scholarly interest in collaboratives recognizes that the capacity for collective learning may play a critical role in their success. However, limited theoretical or empirical research exists to explain how learning occurs and the conditions that support learning in this context. In this article, we draw upon a wealth of literature, ranging from organization theory, policy process and change, and network analysis, to establish a framework of collective learning to guide inquiry in learning in collaborative governance settings. We apply our learning framework to a study of learning in a collaborative ecosystem restoration program in the Florida Everglades. We use the framework to guide a study of how learning processes and products are linked within a collaborative using a case-based, inductive approach at two levels of analysis-the larger program level and the subcase level of a learning product case. Our multilevel analysis draws upon survey and interview data to examine how the framework helps diagnose the specific types of learning processes and products that emerge in this setting, as well as the factors that influence these learning processes. In doing so, the analysis illuminates theoretical propositions, not explained by the broader literature on collective learning, around the structural, social, and technological features of the collaborative, which may foster learning. Collaborative arrangements can address public problems that span multiple political or jurisdictional boundaries, often characterized by uncertainty and difficult social trade-offs, by bringing together distinct actors and organizations to produce or manage these shared problems (Feiock 2009; Kettl 2006; Weber 2009). These arrangements are commonly described under the broader umbrella of network structures, where the participant organizations are dependent upon one another to achieve tasks that reach beyond the individual capacities of independent organizations (Mandell and Steelman 2003; McGuire 2002; The authors wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers and Craig Thomas for their careful reading of this article and helpful suggestions. Meaghan Daly was instrumental with survey administration and data analysis. We are also grateful to Chris Weible for the many productive discussions that have helped us learn about learning, as well as Greg May and the many people who work in the Everglades who we have had to pleasure to interview or survey.

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Adaptation and the adaptive capacity of human and environmental systems have been of central concern to natural and social science scholars, many of whom characterize and promote the need for collaborative cross-boundary systems that are seen as flexible and adaptive by definition. Researchers who study collaborative governance systems in the public administration, planning and policy literature have paid less attention to adaptive capacity specifically and institutional adaptation in general. This paper bridges the two literatures and finds four common dimensions of capacity, including structural arrangements, leadership, knowledge and learning, and resources. In this paper, we focus on institutional adaptation in the context of collaborative governance regimes and try to clarify and distinguish collaborative capacity from adaptive capacity and their contributions to adaptive action. We posit further that collaborative capacities generate associated adaptive capacities thereby enabling institutional adaptation within collaborative governance regimes. We develop these distinctions and linkages between collaborative and adaptive capacities with the help of an illustrative case study in watershed management within the National Estuary Program.

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This article analyzes the promises and potential pitfalls of collaborative governance. It first summarizes the origins and evolution of collaborative governance and then compares the claims of the proponents and opponents. It then reviews what is known and what is still uncertain from the growing body of empirical research studying collaborative environmental governance. The conclusion speculates on the future of collaborative governance for both research and practice.