Empirical hypotheses about organizational change are compared with actual case studies of change and leadership at the University of California (UC) system. The hypotheses are based on the sociological literature on complex organizations and are derived from three perspectives: (1) rational choice and analytic approaches, (2) cognitive perspectives, and (3) cybernetic approaches. Rational choice and analytic approaches posit organizational change as an outcome of leadership exercised through planned responses to environmental change, and/or in the management of internal interests through a dominant coalition. Cognitive perspectives view leadership and change as artifacts of the subjective assessment of objectively random events, while cybernetic approaches explain change as the result of the selective action of the environment on organizational "trials and errors." Reorganization of the UC library system, the development of UC's Early Outreach affirmative action programs, and Martin Trow's 1983 study of reorganization of the biological sciences at UC are discussed as examples of organizational change and responses to environmental changes. (SW)