Organizational change research has developed rich accounts of readiness, recipient responses, sensemaking, managerial agency, and implementation, yet these constructs are often connected as if favorable initial orientations naturally culminate in durable organizational change. This article develops a theoretical process model that shifts the analytical end point from change readiness to change absorption capacity. Change absorption capacity is proposed as an organization-level process capability through which change is repeatedly interpreted, translated across hierarchical locations, adapted to local work, coordinated into distributed routines, and stabilized sufficiently to persist beyond the initiating episode. The model treats middle managers as translational actors rather than passive conduits and positions local adaptation as potentially productive, deflective, or preserving of prior practice. It further argues that institutionalization depends on recursive feedback: enacted consequences reshape subsequent interpretations, managerial translations, and routine performances. Readiness therefore remains important but is recast as an antecedent condition whose influence depends on downstream process continuity. The model also specifies breakdown pathways in which semantic fragmentation, translation overload, incompatible local adaptations, weak routine coupling, or competing change initiatives interrupt absorption. By linking recipient-level interpretation to organizational routine stabilization without collapsing levels of analysis, the article contributes a processual account of how change may become organizationally reproducible. The framework is theoretical rather than empirically validated; its propositions require longitudinal, multilevel, and comparative testing, and its applicability is expected to vary with change type, organizational structure, temporal pressure, and institutional context.
