The purpose of this study is to understand the status of academic re-search for inter-organizational IT co-operation between municipalities. In order to understand the theoretical background for such an inter-organizational IT co-operation, a literature review is organized. In addition to inter-organizational co-operation and IT governance literature, resource based view and transaction cost theories in relevant context will be reviewed. The findings of this study show that existing research is mainly focusing on co-operation activities around companies and outsourcing leaving other reasons for inter-organizational activ-ities with less attention. Research focusing on IT co-operation between munici-palities is quite scarce. Also case studies for public IT co-operations are quite low in numbers.