Research on educational and criminal justice programs sought to clarify the relationship between organizational characteristics and innovation adoption. It focused on the reasons why organizations adopt innovations and the differences in clientele, staff, and decision-making participation between organizations adopting or unaware of an innovative program. Four programs each were chosen from the Education Department's National Diffusion Network (NDN) and the Justice Department's Exemplary Projects Program (EPP). A telephone survey was conducted on a national sample of 187 schools and 131 courts, police departments, and prisons. Variables covered included organizational resources, age, location, size, contact with NDN or EPP, and extent of decision-making participation, as well as four categories of adoption reasons, involving program expense and financial support, changes in roles and role relationships, expected smoothness of implementation, and support from organizational actors. Among the findings yielded by statistical analysis were that adoption reasons varied significantly by program, programs with higher costs had greater organizational participation in the adoption decision, adopters and nonadopters did not differ in staffing or client patterns, and criminal justice organizations were more likely to cite smoothness of implementation as a reason than were educational organizations. (RW)