The strategic decisions that a firm has to adopt with respect to the activities that it will itself carry out and the way that it will be related with the other members of the wealth creating chain of which it forms a part, have a multidimensional character which not only makes it difficult to determine them, but also to offer a definition of them. Thus, when undertaking any type of study into the form in which firms are vertically configured, it is necessary to agree a definition framework which reflects the different facets of this matter. To that end, in this paper we distinguish various dimensions in vertical integration strategy as this is proposed by Harrigan. Once having established the conceptual framework, we propose a set of measures of the dimensions of vertical integration, with these measures being adjusted to the available information which, in our case, have been drawn from the Survey on Business Strategy. These measurements include: intensity of integration, degree of forward integration in commercial activity, degree of backward integration in the group or corporation, scope of integration and use of vertical restrictions. In this way, we obtain an overview of the vertical situation of Spanish industry during the period 1990-1996, with the sectorial differences being indicated either by size and industrial character or by consumption of the production.