Sharing Knowledge in Heterogeneous Environments

On October 8 and 9, 1999, the first Research Greenhouse brought together about 60 members of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) to share ideas on leadership, organizational learning, and change. The exchange of ideas took several forms including informal and formal conversations (“germination sessions”), poster and paper sessions, and panel debates. As the conference organizers Karen Ayas (SoL) and John Carroll (MIT Sloan School) emphasized the importance of reflecting on the Greenhouse, this paper is a summary of my reflections based on my experience, memories, available research papers, and session tapes and notes. I center on the topic of knowledge sharing across boundaries—a focus of the Greenhouse’s discourse and a subject of my own research.