Growing attention to ecosystems has led to an interest in how these complex systems of interdependent organizations emerge. Orchestrators – organizations that align disparate actors around shared goals, enabling collaboration, resource sharing, and knowledge dissemination – are central drivers of ecosystem development. Despite their importance, little is known about how these organizations develop. Through an inductive, qualitative study of a nascent orchestrator in an emerging social enterprise ecosystem, we examine how orchestrators simultaneously develop ecosystems and their own organizational identities (OI). We found that as the orchestrator engaged in ecosystem-building activities and gained legitimacy, OI confusion – a fundamental lack of clarity regarding “who we are” and “what we do”– emerged and intensified. OI confusion undermined the orchestrator’s coordination efforts, threatening ecosystem development. To address this confusion, the orchestrator engaged in “polyphonic OI work” – allowing multiple interpretations of OI to coexist. While this approach allowed the orchestrator to continue coordinating ecosystem activities, OI confusion continuously resurfaced, diverting attention and resources away from ecosystem work. These findings suggest that orchestrators occupy a unique role which requires their identity to constantly co-evolve with the ecosystem they are developing; the tensions that arise from this co-evolution must be managed for orchestrators to successfully develop an ecosystem.
