Abstract for: Adaptive Capacity Under Pressure: A Three-Stock System Dynamics Model in Organizations Facing Sustained Environmental Turbulence

Organizations investing in change initiatives lack a quantitative method for measuring whether adaptive capacity is actually changing. Without measurement, practitioners cannot distinguish genuine capacity development from surface compliance, nor identify which elements constrain organizational adaptability most. This work operationalizes adaptive capacity as three interdependent stocks (Trust, Learning Capacity, and Risk-Taking Capacity) and develops a system dynamics model and survey instrument to measure them. A stock-and-flow model represents Trust, Learning Capacity, and Risk-Taking Capacity as independently accumulating and decaying quantities, each governed by empirically-sourced coefficients, external pressure amplification, and stock-specific intervention parameters. A 55-item survey instrument maps respondent scores directly to model initial values of the three stocks, 3 interventions, and the external pressure.  All coefficients are treated as stated assumptions with cited sources, defensible ranges, and named falsification conditions. The Adaptive Capacity Diagnostic offers practitioners a methodology-neutral measurement instrument applicable across intervention frameworks wherever adaptive capacity is assumed but unmeasured. Remaining work includes calibration against real organizational data, sensitivity analysis, and psychometric validation of the survey instrument. The longer-term contribution is a transferable measurement framework extending adaptive capacity quantification to practitioners across organizational development, process improvement, and strategic transformation contexts, wherever organizational adaptability is assumed but never verified. AI was used to assist in process.