Learning Indicators and Collaborative Capacity: Applying Action Learning Principles to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION The Homeland Security Act of 2002 mandated collaboration as the necessary mechanism for accomplishing the complex and critical mission of protecting the American people. However, in the years since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created as part of this Act, collaborative success still seems elusive. Part of this problem may be attributed to a potential lack of collaborative capacity among DHS organizations, as identified by such scholars as Goodman et al. (1998) and Bardach (1998, 2001). The capacity to collaborate, as described by these authors, is built upon such components as trust, communication, intellectual capital, creative opportunity, acceptance of leadership and learning.