What is Vertically Integrated Enterprise

This chapter critiques trends in enterprise resource planning (ERP) in respect to contemporary multi-organizational enterprise strategy in order to identify under-researched areas. It is based on the premise that multi-organization strategies and information systems span more than one legal company entity and are becoming increasingly important as digital Internet based systems become more prolific, and outsourcing and collaboration between companies becomes more widespread. This chapter presents a critique of literature covering theoretical, methodological and relational aspects of enterprise resource planning systems and multi-organizational enterprise strategy. The critique gives a unique perspective and highlights four major gaps in current research and points towards a trend which is referred to in this chapter as ‘enterprization.' This research could help organizations make more effective use of their information and operations systems strategies when used across more than one company. It should interest researchers, teachers, IS developers and managers.