Purpose This paper aims to study the bibliometric analysis of resource orchestration research in management and businessareas. Design/methodology/approach The research method is based on a three-step protocol of dataset setting, dataset refining and analyzing the data. First, the 202 published articles in the resource orchestration field were collected from the Web of Science database. Second, the document information was refined. Finally, we used the bibliometric analysis toolbox to investigate the documents. Also, bibliometric analysis in this research has been conducted using VOSviewer and SPSS software. Findings The findings of this research examined the evolution of the resource orchestration theory. Also, this paper has identified five major themes in this field: resource orchestration for entrepreneurship and innovation, orchestrating supply chain, orchestrating information technology resources, orchestrating intangible resources and the role of resource orchestration in small firm performance. Finally, emerging trends in the resource orchestration area include sustainable development, innovation and information technology. Originality/value This paper is the first to use bibliometric analysis to examine resource orchestration theory. Accordingly, this research contributes to the resource orchestration area through the theoretical evolution, underlying streams of research and emerging themes in research topics and methodologies.