From Orchestration to Ensemble: Disentangling Ecosystem Management through a Systematic Literature Review

Scholars use the analogy of orchestration to study how heterogeneous organizational actors collaborate and manage the resulting ecosystems. However, as scholars applied the analogy to capture activities in various types of ecosystems, the analogy gelled into a concept that glosses over crucial differences in ecosystem purposes. To disentangle the concept of orchestration, we conduct a systematic literature review that takes stock and accounts for ecosystem diversity. Our analysis revealed that scholars conflate two different conceptions of orchestration when studying ecosystems. The first conception implies a single orchestrator that maximizes value for itself, using directive governance mechanisms, and sustaining its ecosystem through resource management, dynamic capabilities, and staged ecosystem development. It represents the dominant conception of ecosystem management. The second conception, nascent and growing, implies multiple actors involved in inviting and attracting collaborations to create shared value for internal and external ecosystem actors, sustaining their ecosystem through legitimization, government support, and a vision of the common good, for example, to improve environmental sustainability, innovate in disability care, or develop community solutions. Orchestration is a limiting concept for studying the latter type of ecosystems, and we propose using the musical metaphor of ‘ensemble' instead We compare and discuss the two concepts to disentangle orchestration and further ecosystem studies and theory.