Despite all the controversy and expense that have surrounded state executive branch reorganization for more than sixty years, most of what we know is anecdotal, fragmentary, conceptually imprecise and untested. This study is designed to contribute conceptual and empirical order to the study of reorganization by analyzing data drawn from coding most of the state reorganizations of this century. Three central questions are addressed: (I) Why do state reorganizations occur? (2) Whatforms do reorganized executive branches take? (3) How are state executive reorganizations conducted? What strategies and tactics are applied with regard to adoption? We tested 40 hypotheses derived from the relationships of three competing and complementary perspectives on reorganization with three adoption strategies and four dimensions of executive reorganization.
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