無論由學理上或是由實務上的觀點來看，等待(waiting)一直是學者與業 界亟於瞭解的問題。然而過去的研究大多偏於等候理論與等待心理的探討，至於 其產生的原因或本質則較少述及，也因此使這方面的研究成果在適用上有其困難 性。本研究採用文獻回顧與實際現象之觀察，進而對等待現象加以分類，利用流 (flow)、配合 (match)、平衡 (balance)及瓶頸(botteneck)的觀點探索等待現象之潛 在根本原因，提出等待本質;並分析心理、科技及供需等方面的隱含重點及其對 等待的可能影響，重新對等待系統加以定義與劃分。最後提出等待之排法設計及 彈性控制措施以為執行時之輔助工具。 經過分析、歸納與探討之後，本研究在等待本質、等待矩陣、等待心理層級及排 法設計上分別提出一系列之論點。與其他現存文獻相較，本研究之成果不但在等 待系統上有較寬廣且多方面的整理與剖析，同時在實用面上也提供了一個完整的 架構與參考模式。

　　　　　From the academic and pragmatic points of view, waiting is always a major issue of concern for many scholars and entrepreneurs. Current studies emphasize queuing theory and waiting psychology and neglect the reasons or basic causes responsible for the waiting phenomenon. This makes the results of the analyses ineffective in solving the problems. After summarizing the published literature and observing the actual waiting phenomenon, we classify the waiting phenomenon, and analyze the latent basic reasons through the perspectives of flow, matching, balance, and bottleneck in order to advance the understanding of the nature of waiting. The latent meaning and influence of waiting psychology, technology, and supply and demand were studied, and the waiting system was redefined. On the basis of this analyses, a better arrangement was designed for application and flexible control measures as supplemental tools for the execution of the arrangement. The major contributions of this paper were to clarify the nature of waiting, hierarchy of waiting psychology, and the designs of waiting arrangement. The results of this study have broader applications to managements of waiting system, and offer an integral framework and models to refer to in practice.