Extending Unbounded Systems thinking with agent-oriented modeling: conceptualizing a multiple perspective decision-making support system

Organizations today face complex decision-making environments in which multiple perspectives must be considered. Mitroff and Linstone developed Unbounded Systems Thinking (UST), of which multiple perspectives are an integral part. They suggest that, while the theory of applying multiple perspectives to decision-making and knowledge creation is sound and well researched, the implementation of multiple perspectives is difficult. It is maintained here that agent-oriented modeling can be used to design a system supporting multiple perspectives and to extend UST. This paper applies the Belief–Desire–Intention model of agents to UST to demonstrate the use of agent-oriented modeling to facilitate multiple perspective decision support.