Mediators in Systems-of-Systems and Ecosystems: A Systematic Literature Review and Conceptualization

In most systems-of-systems (SoS) and ecosystems, peer-to-peer relations are insufficient to provide the desired emergent behavior, but the support of mediators is necessary. Mediators are elements that facilitate the collaboration between the constituents of the SoS or ecosystem, without having a role outside it. The topic has previously been studied in the SoS field, mainly from a software engineering perspective, and separately also in research on software, business, and innovation ecosystems. This paper presents a systematic literature review on mediators across scholarly work in SoS as well as ecosystems. It identifies mediator functionality and implementation concerns, and discusses alternative terminology. Based on findings from the literature, a suggestion for an improved conceptualization is presented, which also includes the information, processing and interactions involved in the mediation.