Description

Enterprise alignment is the problem of choosing between local and enterprise solutions (products, processes, services).
Divisions face the Prisoners Dilemma with enterprise alignment--should they:
collaborate by automatically choosing the enterprise solution
defect by choosing the optimal solution for the division (which may or may not be the enterprise solution).
The rational option (defect), if followed by multiple Divisions, results in more fragmentation across the enterprise and fewer enterprise solutions.

This paper shows that this problem is equivalent to the classic Prisoners Dilemma problem. Using game theory, a number of solutions are identified.