Ecosystems have become a major trend in research and practice alike. Within an ecosystem, the so-called orchestrator is considered to be one of the most important roles. However, extant research falls short of explaining how and why this orchestrator role and the resulting tasks of orchestration are allocated to specific ecosystem members. Based on a case study with eight cases, this paper aims to shed light on this crucial question. Our results revealed three basic patterns of ecosystem orchestration: single-, double-, and multi-orchestration ecosystems. These were determined by two key contingencies: production related knowledge and consumption related knowledge. This discovery yields several contributions to research and managerial practice. We show whether, and under which circumstances, orchestrators might include other ecosystem participants in the key tasks of orchestration. We demonstrate how orchestrators allocate these tasks to specific participants in the ecosystem. Furthermore, our results shed light on how orchestrators manage their ecosystem partners and secure their position within the ecosystem. And finally, we introduce a new view on the role of the orchestrator.

生态系统已成为研究和实践的主要趋势。在一个生态系统中，所谓的协调者被认为是最重要的角色之一。然而，现有的研究未能解释如何以及为什么将这种协调者角色以及由此产生的协调任务分配给特定的生态系统成员。本文基于八个案例的案例研究，旨在阐明这个关键问题。我们的结果揭示了生态系统编排的三种基本模式：单编排、双编排和多编排生态系统。这些是由两个关键的偶然因素决定的：生产相关知识和消费相关知识。这一发现对研究和管理实践产生了一些贡献。我们展示了是否以及在何种情况下，编排器可能包括其他生态系统参与者参与编排的关键任务。我们展示了编排器如何将这些任务分配给生态系统中的特定参与者。此外，我们的结果揭示了协调者如何管理其生态系统合作伙伴并确保其在生态系统中的地位。最后，我们介绍了关于编排器角色的新观点。