Shaping the System Through Turbulence: Strategic Leadership and the Micro‐Foundations of Ecosystem Orchestration in Times of Disruption

Abstract While research on ecosystems and their orchestration has grown rapidly, we still know little about how individual strategic leaders may mobilize ecosystemic action in times of disruption. This article addresses this gap by drawing on an in‐depth case study of the Antwerp Square Mile, the world’s oldest and most renowned diamond trading ecosystem. Analysing how leading individuals orchestrated the Mile’s response to lab‐grown diamonds, we identify three key pathways through which individuals can steer ecosystems amid disruptive innovation: a cognitive pathway , in which leaders shape the system’s collective interpretations of the disruption as well as itself; a social pathway , in which leaders sustain and reconfigure changing relational ties across ecosystem participants; and an emotional pathway , in which leaders manage shifting affective dynamics to maintain engagement and resilience. By highlighting how ecosystems can be meaningfully guided through disruption by everyday acts of interpretation, connection, and affective interaction, this study contributes an important micro‐foundational angle to existing macro‐level explanations in times of systemic turbulence – shedding light on the small, to comprehend the grand.