The world nowadays faces an abundance of inevitable changes. Giddens (1992) describes the current time as full of danger and risk, new experience and opportunities. Changes in the society affect changes in all levels of education. That is why it becomes inevitable to look for ways and forms that could help meeting the requirements of the rapid and complicated post-modern world and unforeseen events.Educational institution in the constantly changing environment has to be receptive and open to it. Insularity leads toward self-isolation and, finally, toward backwardness. Being receptive to internal and external innovations is of great importance to the countries in transition. Education is one of the spheres where changes are mostly inevitable. Lithuanian institutions of non- university higher education have to be especially receptive to external and internal changes in order to adapt in the new environment of the EU.Receptivity as a concept has not been widely analyzed by educational researchers. In the field of business the concept of absorptive capacity is used when analyzing diverse, significant and complex organizational phenomena: in the sphere of strategic management (Lane & Lubatkin, 1998; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998), technology management (Schilling, 1998), organizational economics (Glass & Saggi, 1998). We follow the most widely cited definition of absorptive capacity offered by Cohen and Levinthal (1990), viewing it as the organization's ability to value, assimilate, and apply new knowledge. We also consider Zara and George's (2002) re- conceptualization of the above mentioned notion to be of great significance to our study of individual and organizational receptivity.Lithuanian colleges have undergone tremendous changes in transition from the advanced technical schools to institutions of non- university level higher education. These were mostly externally inspired processes. But in order to achieve the new organizational status, teachers had to be especially receptive gaining new competences. The conditions created by organizations were one of the main supportive factors determining the success of the above mentioned processes. But this was a rather difficult task for both the teachers and organizations. The ways of crossing the barriers of teachers' receptivity to innovations causing curriculum change cover the problem of the paper. The paper consists of five sections. The first part deals with the concept of receptivity in relation with such concepts as absorptive capacity, openness, innovativeness, etc. The second part draws on the characteristics of receptivity, the focus of our attention being its rationality. The third part of the paper analyzes the organizational and individual assumptions of receptivity: what determines it, what barriers emerge and why, etc. The model based on the above mentioned factors is presented. The fourth part tells a short story of the innovation (curriculum change) itself and the educational organization where it has been implemented. Further on the research methodology and results are presented. The model can be applied in non- university level higher education organizations in order to empower educational organization communities and individuals to be more active and successful in selecting the most valuable pedagogical innovations.