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 percieve a specific situation or - to be more realistic - reflecting on the consequences if actor perceptions were such-and-so, is the primary task to be done. In general, there is no lack of theoretical notions of inter-organizational networks and actors. However, there actually is a lack of practical aid for empirical research on the basis of the actor-model and its network approach. 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 will 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 - from cognitive mapping and linguistic approaches to approximate reasoning - is illustrated. Some of the supportive functions, such as graphical rendering of perceptions are shown. The determination of the actors' perceptions, registered in a database management system, enables us to get a complete and structured insight into the strategic behavior of the actors.