The government is an important institutional arrangement to prompt economic and social development, safeguard social justice and realize social value. Along with the market-oriented economic reform in 1970s in China, a series of reforms of the administrative system related to the function transformation, power operation, personnel management, decentralization, performance management has carried out. Government functions reflect government 's responsibilities in public domain and should be adapted to the changes of economic system. Therefore, the transformation of government functions had become the main line of the administrative reform． Based on Kast 's organizational change process model, the paper organizes the literature related to the transformation of government functions from four respects: environment, planning, performance evaluation and implementation path. Firstly, the environment reflects the adaptive relationship between the government transformation and the environment, focusing on why to change and which factors matter. Secondly, the planning reflects the goal which could be used to define the boundaries of action. It reflects the environment and guides the realization of the transformation. Thirdly, performance evaluation involves the evaluation of the results of the transformation of government functions, which includes analyzing the disadvantage for further optimization. Fourthly, implementation path should put forward improving schemes regarding the relevant internal optimization strategy and external security mechanisms based on the ongoing performance of the transformation of government functions. The related literatures echo general rules of the reforms of the administrative system as well as organizational change. The progress and consensus are as follows: Firstly, the transformation of government functions is the inner requirement of the market economic system reform. It should be adjusted and improved with time, comprehensively considering the starting point and goal of the economic restructuring as well as the market economic growth situation. The transformation of government functions that accompanies the market economic system reform is affected by a number of factors. There are two kinds of views for the division of the influence factors. Secondly, the framework for government management paradigm transformation, which is centered around service-oriented government, has been established. This framework is also the objective of the present reforms of administrative system. service-oriented government has the internal consistency with the governance modernization and its ultimate objective is to build a function system with rational allocation, smooth relations and symmetrical responsibilities. Thirdly, despite of the difficulty on functions definition and standard design, it has been proved that the introduction of the performance evaluation tools help to describe the effect of the transformation of government functions more accurately. Fourthly, the optimization of internal strategy focuses on the institution, authority, organization and personnel, while the core of the external security mechanisms is to further optimize the distribution of administrative resources and the promotion of the ″ government-market -society″ polycentric governance pattern. Based on the existing literatures, further research could be put forward from the following aspects:（1） The theoretical system and operating mechanism of the transformation of government functions. The existing literatures mainly concerned the dominant elements within the government. Compared with the latest progress in the field of organizational change, little attention was paid to the underlying culture of change. And further research should be put forward to the interaction between the economic reform and the transformation of government functions. (2) The performance and its influencing factors of the transformation of government functions. It is necessary to develop measurement tools with high reliability and validity and to introduce the existing achievements of performance evaluation regarding organizational change to the field of the transformation of government functions. Ways of performance evaluation based on the assessment of public satisfaction should also be explored to highlight the driving role of the public. Meanwhile, it is important to analyze the effectiveness and the reasons of changes, and to explore the distribution and rule of the influence path. (3) The comparison of the case of the transformation of government functions. With more attention to the comparative analysis of practical cases, relationship between the transformation of government functions and democracy-building should be emphasized on to improve relevant internal optimization strategy and external security mechanisms, which reflects the need of market economy building and democratic political construction.