During the emergence phase, innovation ecosystems—groups of independent, yet interdependent, heterogeneous actors who engage in collective action to jointly deliver value—need to convince their members to contribute collectively to a common goal. For this to happen, the ecosystem needs to acquire legitimacy, that is, it must establish the acceptability, plausibility, and credibility of the common goal, which often is a value proposition. We posit that, if acquiring legitimacy is hard, keeping through the emergence process is harder. Most ecosystems will likely lose its legitimacy at some point and if its legitimacy is to be durable, the ecosystem needs to face that loss and find ways to recover it. Using a longitudinal case study of a hydrogen mobility ecosystem, this article empirically examines the phenomenon of ecosystem legitimacy acquisition. Our findings reveal the existence of three interacting types of processes that occur within the ecosystem that contribute to building durable legitimacy: preparing for resilient legitimacy, monitoring weakening legitimacy, and recovering legitimacy. Moreover, we show that building resilience for legitimacy is a key tool the ecosystem can depend on to survive despite great uncertainty as it addresses the loss of credibility among its members. Finally, we observe that orchestration has a crucial role to play in legitimation processes. We argue that orchestration should address not only the coordination of actions and resources to address consumer demand but also the ecosystem’s member’s perceptions of its purpose and changes in those perceptions.
