The concept of organizational learning has gained increasing attention as an important approach to administrative theory and practice. This article examines some of the major models of organizational learning and argues that these different approaches, to one extent or another, have obscured the importance of learning's substantive meaning as applied to public policy and public affairs in general. We propose an approach called substantive learning which challenges public administrators to reflect upon the intended and unintended outcomes of policies in an intersectoral environment.
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