This article describes the work being undertaken by a roundtable of se
nior government officials and private sector executives in Canada, who
have been working together to examine the implications for governance
of the emergence of a global information society and to develop more
effective approaches to governing in that new context. It describes ho
w the members of the roundtable have conceptualized the information so
ciety and some of the challenges it poses. It summarizes the action-le
arning process they have followed to explore these issues more deeply
and to experiment with better approaches to governing in the informati
on society. And it outlines some of the initial findings to emerge fro
m their continuing work. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.