An actor is perceived by its environment as an economically independent (and often also legal) entity. Enterprises and individuals are examples of actors. A profit and loss responsible business unit, which can be seen as economically independent is an actor, although such a unit needs not to be a legal entity.
Economically independent refers to the ability of an actor to be profitable after a reasonable period
of time (in case of an enterprise), or to increase value for itself (in case of an individual). For a
sound and viable value web, we require that each actor can be profitable or can increase its value.
|Name||company name, or a name that represents the role such an actor plays.|
Rectangle, with its enterprise or role name.
A ‘traveler’ is an example of an actor. If the railway company is known by name, then the railway company is given this name. However, initially company names are often not known yet, so then the role name is chosen, in this case ‘railway company’.