The article provides an overview on recent research findings in political science as well as international comparative education. The central point of interest is the explanatory power of transformation research for explaining educational change under the constraints of time and chaos in transitional societies. Findings will be related to classical organizational studies on innovation and change in education and the author will question the particular value of transformation research for explaining educational change. Instead, classical research paradigms in organizational research still have a variety of approaches to offer which do not have less explanatory power.