Assessing the quality of negotiated proposals using the REMBRANDT system

Abstract

In many negotiating situations one of the bargaining parties is seen to tender proposals (the allocator), with the other party merely accepting or rejecting these proposals (the ratifier). In this paper, we develop an adaptation of the REMBRANDT system for multicriteria decision analysis to offer negotiation decision support to the ratifier in a complex multiple issue negotiating process. The members in the ratifying group judge every pair of issues (to determine subjective weightings for the issues) and then subjectively compare the value of the given proposal to previously-determined acceptable levels (to determine acceptability scores for each issue). The resulting scores and weights are aggregated into a single measure, the total proposal impact, which represents the group's opinion of the proposal, and directly leads to its acceptance or rejection. A whole negotiation is modelled by sequential applications of this methodology. Decision makers may have different powers and saliences to influence the decision. The methodology is illustrated by means of a hypothetical example.