Hypergames and What They Do: A ‘Soft O.R.’ Approach

Many decision problems involve conflicts of interest between different participants. An effort has been made to develop hypergame analysis as one way of modelling such situations. Specifically this approach is designed to allow for the fact that the various parties may have quite different beliefs about the situation-including different models of each other. The aim of this paper is to suggest some ways in which such an approach might be used in practice, and to show how these could be of help in dealing with complex conflict problems. It is emphasised that while the end product of a hypergame analysis may be useful, much of the benefit is gained from the actual process of carrying it out.