Improving strategic decision making: dynamic actor network analysis

In strategic decision making the values and opinions of the actors involved are, in some respect, more important than the 'objective' knowledge about the factors in such a situation. Finding out how actors perceive a specific situation is the primary task to be done. As researchers, we normally omit the perspectives of the individual actors and their strategic behavior during the analysis. With the development of a computerized support tool DANA, a first attempt has been made to tackle this problem. We demonstrate DANA on the basis of the policy making around the introduction of public distribution centers in the Netherlands. With respect to the foregoing, some elements of the underlying modeling language are discussed, and the embodiment of concepts is illustrated. Some of the supportive functions, such as graphical rendering of perceptions are shown.