摘要: The paper presents a theory of the process of top-down, management-led type oforganizational change, whose central postulate maintains that an induction of any such change programs is likely to bring about a temporary impairment o... 展开 The paper presents a theory of the process of top-down, management-led type oforganizational change, whose central postulate maintains that an induction of any such change programs is likely to bring about a temporary impairment of organizational performance, until a new equilibrium is attained. Some key variables, involved in the process as either facilitators or impediments of change are identified, quantified and integrated into a System Dynamics model. Sensitivity tests made by computer simulation showed that the model behaves over time as predicted. For illustrative purposes, a published case study of directed organizational change was reproduced by the present simulation model. The results of the simulation demonstrate that the model is internally consistent and that, at least in this case, it is theoretically adequate. Further tests with additional data sets are required to validate the theory. The system dynamics model makes it possible to conduct such empirical tests under identical and controlled research conditions. 收起