The American Review of Public Administration, Ahead of Print.
Organizational learning is widely seen as a particularly valuable form of change, driven by professionals closest to the work of the agency and all its challenges. However, the growing literature on this process identifies a large and varied set of requisites for learning. The object here is to survey these requisites and show how they are the many guises of a few basic learning processes, and in doing so distinguish the conditions that stimulate or initiate learning from those that support it. Although all of the paths to learning can be encouraged, the stimuli have been less appreciated for their particular role.