Two types of explanations of state government innovation have been proposed: internal determinants models (which posit that the factors causing a state government to innovate are political, economic, and social characteristics of a state) and regional diffusion models (which point toward the role of policy adoptions by neighboring states in prompting a state to adopt). We show that the two are conceptually compatible, relying on Mohr's theory of organizational innovation. Then we develop and test a unified explanation of state lottery adoptions reflecting both internal and regional influences. The empirical results provide a great degree of support for Mohr's theory. For the empirical analysis, we rely on event history analysis, a form of pooled cross-sectional time series analysis, which we believe may be useful in a wide variety of subfields of political science. Event history analysis may be able to explain important forms of political behavior (by individuals, organizations, or governments) even if they occur only rarely.

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Strategic planning and related strategic management elements have become ubiquitous practices at all levels of U.S. government and many nonprofit organizations over the past 25 years. The authors review strategic planning and management research over that time period using the premises of practice theory to guide the discussion. The review is organized according to 10 research directions proposed by Bryson, Freeman, and Roering (1986). Important gains have been made in a number of areas, but much more remains to be done. The authors also propose four new research directions, including the need to (1) attend more fully to the nature of strategic management practice, (2) focus on learning and knowledge management generally as part of strategic management, (3) focus specifically on how strategy knowledge develops and is used, and (4) understand how information and communication technologies can be best integrated into strategic management. The fruits of further concentrated research can be improved public strategic management practice, including enhanced organizational capacity for addressing current and future challenges and improvements in long-term performance.

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