Flexible Negotiation Research Articles

Balanced increment and concession methods for negotiation support

We reconsIDer bargaining models developed to determine fair and reasonable solution outcomes for bargaining problems. Based on these models we develop novel negotiation support methods that will be able to produce on demand recommendations during a negotiation process. We first briefly discuss Raiffa's solution of balanced increments and, based on that IDea, propose another solution based on balanced concessions. The combined application of the bargaining process models associated with these solutions leads to a flexible negotiation support method. A risk sharing negotiation problem illustrates how to implement our negotiation support method in a negotiation case.

Flexible Negotiation Modeling by Using Colored Petri Nets

In multi-agent systems, negotiations are important activities for solving agent conflicts and forming agent cooperation. Nowadays, many applications require multi-agent systems to work in open and dynamic environments. In such working environments, agents need to face various changeable factors in negotiations The dynamic features of open environments make the need of a flexible mechanism to handle agent negotiations that can involve various negotiation protocols and to allow agents to form dynamic negotiation relationships. In this article, we bring some advantages of Colored Petri Net techniques to capture dynamic and concurrent features of agent negotiations, and propose a Colored Petri Net based approach to model and handle agent negotiation activities. In this approach, agents can choose different protocols, which are represented in Colored Petri Net models, to operate negotiations. In addition, this approach supports flexible negotiations that involve different number of negotiation partners.

Is Distinction Impossible?: Comparing Risks between Radioactive Waste Facilities and Nuclear Power Stations

This paper explores whether people can distinguish among different risks. People are frequently regarded as rational beings who judge distinct risks differently. However, there are few risk studies analyzing the judgment of risk distinction. Hence, our study explores whether people distinguish between the risks of Nuclear Power Stations (NPS) and Radioactive Waste Facilities (RWF), and who has the ability to distinguish risk. Our analysis is based on empirical survey data from a sample of 816 people. First, according to value-differentiation, we divide the respondents into two groups, discriminate and indiscriminate, running a logistic regression to determine who is included in each group. Second, to know the object-differentiation by which people discern between the two risks, we create four groups. By logistic regression, we analyze what kinds of factors contribute to determining the probability of inclusion in each of the four groups. Third, to determine the effects of distinctive judgments, we analyze risk estimation, risk image, and the possibility of flexible negotiation according to four classified groups. In short, this study suggests that there are structural factors that determine distinctive judgments. Moreover, we demonstrate that those discretionary factors influence the interpretation of risk estimation and image, and determine the possible actions.

Normalizing ideological food choice and eating practices. Identity work in online discussions on veganism

In this paper we use discursive psychology to explore the relation between ideologically based food choice and identity in an online forum on veganism. The discursive psychological perspective underlines the notion of identities being part of social actions performed in talk, and thus designed and deployed for different interactional purposes. It is demonstrated that participants draw on specific discursive devices to (1) define vegan meals as ordinary and easy to prepare and (2) construct methods of preventing vitamin deficiency, such as taking supplements, as routine procedures. In ‘doing being ordinary’, participants systematically resist the notion that being a vegan is complicated—in other words, that it is both difficult to compose a meal and to protect your health. In this way, ‘ordinariness’ helps to construct and protect veganism as an ideology. We point out similarities and differences with other studies on eating or healthy lifestyles and argue, more broadly, that identities and their category-bound features are part and parcel of participants’ highly flexible negotiation package.

The European Union in international environmental negotiations: an analysis of the Stockholm Convention negotiations

AbstractThis article focuses on the way the European Union acted as a negotiating party during the international negotiations leading to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (1998–2000). Starting from a principal–agent model, the article discusses how the EU participated in these negotiations and how the internal decision‐making process developed. It argues that the EU was able to negotiate in a unified and influential way by defending a common position, which was expressed by a flexible negotiation arrangement, at the international level. Three features of the EU decision‐making process engendered such a strong EU negotiation arrangement: homogeneous preferences among the actors in the EU, symmetrically distributed information among them and a cooperative and institutionally dense decision‐making context. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Impending Flop for Brand Antiretrovirals in the Emerging Markets?

Forecasts from Country choices, South-South partnerships and Clinton Foundation-UNITAID coalition show that present policies for brand ARVs are at the risk of flop in emerging South markets such as India, China, Thailand and Brazil.The dynamics explored in this article highlight the risks the originator companies are running in the emerging markets, along with their interest in direct agreements with the generic industry for the manufacturing and marketing of ARVs.Resulting information here would suggest the brand enterprises: To look for fast registration of their ARVs by regulatory authorities in all countries enlisted for differential pricing.To secure all formulations differentiated prices.To align with the Clinton-UNITAID prices for the corresponding generics.To pursue flexible negotiations with the generic companies to secure both counterparts long-term advantages.

Design of an institutional decision-making process: The case of urban water management

Urban water infrastructure expenditures cause a major financial burden to municipalities. In the opinion of many policy-makers, public funds may alleviate this burden and facilitate environmental policies. However, practice has shown that despite ambitious policies, funding often follows traditional cost-dominated thinking. In Austria, national policy-makers were interested in new guidelines for funding that increase the transparency of the planning, ensure the adequate treatment of ecological problems, and foster stakeholder involvement, but keep the process as simple as possible, and require minimal changes of the current guidelines. An interdisciplinary project team conducted such a study. Its outcome was tested in two pilot projects. Based on these experiences, policy-makers finally implemented the recommended guidelines for the funding of communal urban water infrastructure projects. A general observation about the policy-making process was a conservative attitude of policy-makers. They prefer simple constraints (precautionary principle) and flexible negotiations (delegation) to complex assessment and decision-aid methodologies.

Knowledge-empowered automated negotiation system for e-Commerce

This paper focuses on knowledge empowered automated negotiation systems for buyer-centric multi-bilateral multi-attribute e-Procurement. We propose two knowledge empowered models, namely KERM and KACM. KERM is used for the buyer to determine a list of suppliers which are the best qualified candidates to negotiate with. The use of knowledge features largely in the model, which incorporates both the buyer’s and supplier’s profiles in evaluating a quote. Historical trade records of a supplier contribute to the supplier’s profile credit and therefore the rank of the supplier’s quote. KERM also allows the flexibility to assign appropriate weights, based on buyer’s interests, to each knowledge factor affecting the overall evaluation result of a quote. The resulted list of quotes of high rank is believed to produce satisfactory negotiation result for the buyer. KACM enables an automated concession process, while at the same time facilitates a flexible negotiation via the use of concept switch and tagged rules. Different from other negotiation models, KACM emphasizes the utilization of knowledge originated from the historical negotiation data in estimating and fine-tuning the negotiation parameters, for improving the performance of automated negotiation. Graph results show that our software prototype system makes significant improvement in the satisfaction level of negotiation results.

A flexible negotiation model for an agent-based software process modelling

Our Agent-based Software Process Modelling (ASPM) approach describes a software process as a set of cooperative agents. Negotiation is the way in which the agents construct their cooperative relations, and thus the software process. Currently, most negotiation models use a fixed negotiation protocol and fixed strategies. In order to achieve the flexibility that the negotiation of the agents in ASPM requires, we propose a negotiation model NM-PA. NM-PA mainly includes a generic negotiation protocol and some rules, which possibly change in different negotiation processes. By changing the rules, the model can support multi-protocols and multi-decision-making strategies at a lower cost.

Making sense of digital textuality

One of the fundamental developments brought about by interactive and multilinear digital technology is the greater structural fragmentation of texts and the consequent re-evaluation of textual coherence. While the concept of text is contingent on some internal coherence, the new text type of electronic hypertext places new challenges on this paradigm by allowing ways of reading texts which would appear to disturb rather than build coherence. In relying on the flexible negotiation of readerly expectations with actual continuities experienced as the reading progresses, hypertextual coherence both encourages us to re-evaluate the rules of textual coherence from a more pragmatically oriented point of view and echoes some of the most recent theoretical views of how we interpret words in their surrounding co-text. This article presents an outline for a linguistic analysis of hypertextual coherence and points out the new dimensions of coherence left unaccounted for by conventional models. What happens when multilinearity makes texts unstable? How do we discuss a text – or meaningfully refer to one – if each reading has the power of transforming the potential narrative lines of a hypertext into a new literary object which may have never existed prior to that reading? Digital media rely on a new understanding of texts not as definitive objects, but as networks of relationships and meanings which by their very nature are relative, transitory, and subject to change at any moment. The potentially disturbing effects of such textual characteristics are counter-acted by the new, more fluid concept of digital coherence.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin against the Settlers: A Stakeholder Analysis

This case study considers how a minority stakeholder group of Israeli settlers blocked Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s peace initiatives. Drawing on interviews with those who served in Rabin’s administration and with the settlers’ leaders, this article contends that the prime minister’s use of adversarial public rhetoric against the settlers denied the legitimacy of an influential stakeholder group, triggering a backlash of intense militancy from the right‐wing minority. This, coupled with Rabin’s failure to deal with opposing coalitions, diminished his capacity to implement “land for peace” initiatives. The case illustrates a leader’s failure to maintain adequate forms of engagement with key stakeholders. The accompanying analysis demonstrates that stakeholder theories, though incomplete in their existing forms, can still illuminate the high risk and ineffectiveness of denying the legitimacy of stakeholder groups and the strategic importance of maintaining channels of flexible negotiation and cooperation with seemingly marginal groups when high‐stakes rivalries are likely to ensue.

Continuous-Time Negotiation Mechanism for Software Agents

While there are several existing mechanisms and systems addressing the crucial and difficult issues of automated one-to-many negotiation, this paper develops a flexible one-to-many negotiation mechanism for software agents. Unlike the existing general one-to-many negotiation mechanism, in which an agent should wait until it has received proposals from all its trading partners before generating counterproposals, in the flexible one-to-many negotiation mechanism, an agent can make a proposal in a flexible way during negotiation, i.e., negotiation is conducted in continuous time. To decide when to make a proposal, two strategies based on fixed waiting time and a fixed waiting ratio are proposed. Results from a series of experiments suggest that, guided by the two strategies for deciding when to make a proposal, the flexible negotiation mechanism achieved more favorable trading outcomes as compared with the general one-to-many negotiation mechanism. To determine the amount of concession, negotiation agents are guided by four mathematical functions based on factors such as time, trading partners' strategies, negotiation situations of other threads, and competition. Experimental results show that agents guided by the four functions react to changing market situations by making prudent and appropriate rates of concession and achieve generally favorable negotiation outcomes.

Operation of an SLA-aware Grid Fabric

Research on Grid Computing started under purely technical questions of how to realize the virtualization of distributed resources. Now, the commercial user should be attracted to use the Grid. Future applications of the Next Generation Grid will demand for flexible negotiation mechanisms supporting various ways of Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees. In this context a Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a powerful instrument for describing all obligations and expectations within a business partnership. Many research projects already focus on realizing SLAs within the Grid middleware. However this is not sufficient. Resource Management Systems also have to be SLA-aware, since these systems provide their resources to Grid infrastructures. In this study we present the EU-funded project HPC4U (Highly Predictable Clusters for Internet Grids), which aims at realizing such an RMS by means of SLA-negotiation and scheduling and application-transparent fault tolerance.

The allocation of risk in PPP/PFI construction projects in the UK

Public/private partnership (PPP) procurement is seen as an effective way to achieve value for money (VFM) in public infrastructure projects. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the UK is a form of PPP that seeks to combine the advantages of competitive tender and flexible negotiation, and transfer risk away from the public sector. The final risk allocation agreement is reached along with overall contract agreement. It is important for the public client and the private bidders to assess all the potential risks through the whole project life. A questionnaire survey was conducted to explore preferences in risk allocation. Analysis of the response data shows that some risks should still be retained within the public sector or shared with the private sector. These are mainly macro and micro level risks. The majority of risks in PPP/PFI projects, especially those in the meso level risk group, should be allocated to the private sector. However, there are a few risks where unilateral allocation is not always obvious. The research findings should enable public sector clients to establish more efficient risk allocation frameworks in the early stages of project development.

A NEGOTIATION FRAMEWORK FOR ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

In the last few years there has been a growing need for organizations to build cooperative information systems. These organizations and their processes that manipulate vast quantities of information are based on heterogeneous, distributed and autonomous data sources. However, without appropriated techniques of negotiation, any execution of organizational information systems would yield to disjoining and error-prone behavior, while requiring excessive effort to build and maintain. In this paper, we present a flexible negotiation framework, which is based on social constraints and conversation plans. The infrastructure of this framework may well fit the negotiation needs of organizational information systems in a highly dynamic and unpredictable environment. This framework has been implemented as a negotiation service in our cooperative application environment. Some examples are given from manufacturing applications.

From “blame by praise” to “praise by blame”: Analysis of vocal patterns in ironic communication

From a communication psychology point of view, irony is not only a rhetorical figure or a cunning linguistic device, but also an articulated strategy for a flexible negotiation of meaning, as well as for establishing and maintaining relations with others. Within the “irony family” phenomena our attention is focused on the sarcastic irony generated in a conflict context (“praise by blame”) and on the kind irony produced in a cooperation context (“blame by praise”). The effects of the variability of contextual cues on the vocal variables (Fo, energy, time) of irony were studied. Through the analysis of the vocal features of standard phrases in a conflict or cooperation context, an ironic dominant pattern has been found consisting of caricatured vocal traits, although differences referring to the two ironic expressions came out. From a subject‐by‐subject analysis, four ironic patterns were obtained: (1) in the cooperation context (a) a rather high and changeable pitch and strong energy (“bantering” joy) were observed, as well as (b) a low and monotone pitch and strong energy (emphatic mark of tenderness); (2) in the conflict context (a) a very high and changeable pitch, strong energy, and slow rate of articulation (“accented banter”) were found, as well as (b) a low and not very changeable pitch, slow rate of articulation, and steadily soft energy (like scorn and cold anger). Following these four vocal patterns, the ironic voice could be defined as a “voice of banter.” In such a way, irony appears as a method used to manipulate the weight of indirect speech, which allows the efficacy of the word and the innocence of silence. Moreover, the ironist can be described as an able director of his own image, able to play with the voice. Within social relationships, in fact, he can use his own voice for calibrating strategically his ways of (un)masking himself to the others.

Transaction Management In Databases Supporting Web-Based Negotiations

Majority of systems supporting negotiations and collaboration between users require functions provided by database management systems, e.g. data persistency, concurrency control. In order to be used as kernels of negotiation systems, databases require however important extensions, reflecting the specificity of human interaction. The classical database paradigm assumes that database users communicate only via committed data. Since the users are totally isolated by the database system, each of them has an impression that the system is dedicated to him. When users collaborate to achieve a common goal, this approach is obviously too restrictive. Collaborators have to communicate directly before they agree on a data value.In the paper a particular approach to transaction management in databases supporting negotiation is proposed. It is based on a new transaction model that allows practically unrestricted collaboration among members of the same team. The basic assumption of this model is that negotiating users try to solve their access conflicts at a higher level than the level of the database management system. In case of potential access conflicts, the database system triggers a particular notification mechanism that starts negotiations between respective users at the application level.Since the proposed approach was practically verified, the paper presents also the Agora prototype. Agora is a Web-based conferencing system, offering conference participants flexible tools for collaborative work, in particular for flexible and efficient negotiation. Agora also contains a component, which facilitates collaborative document writing during negotiations.

Which Jerusalem? A Consideration of Concepts and Borders

‘Jerusalem’ conveys intensely spiritual meanings seeming to preclude political accommodation. A total solution that is absolutely clear to all parties seems impossible. Yet the several names, conceptions, and geographical denotations associated with the city offer options that lend themselves to creative and flexible negotiations that emphasize coping based on exploitation of the ambiguity inherent in the city's nature. More precisely, the intention is to blunt the emotions, whose source is religious, that the name ‘Jerusalem’ awakens, in a way that will allow coping in the realms of political and adminstration with greater success.

Antecedents of Parent-Adolescent Disagreements

The quality of an adolescent's relationship with his or her parents is a key component to healthy adolescent development. Secure bonds between parents and their adolescent children allow young people the freedom to grow and explore, knowing their home represents a safe haven to which they can return when necessary. Yet conflict, which may denote weak or weakening interpersonal bonds, often occurs within parent-adolescent relationships. In most families, however, this conflict usually amounts to little more than mild arguments and bickering (Hill, 1993; Steinberg, 1990), and some researchers believe that such disputes may serve to strengthen the parent-adolescent relationship (Anderson & Sabatelli, 1990; Cooper, 1988; Galatzer-Levy & Cohler, 1993; Steinberg, 1990). These writers have suggested that parents and their adolescent children raise important developmental issues during disagreements. By successfully negotiating responses to issues such as adolescent demands for greater autonomy, parent-adolescent relations are restructured to allow adolescent growth while maintaining close family ties. Unfortunately, some families do not successfully resolve disputes between parents and adolescents and disagreements become intense or long lasting. When this occurs, conflict can weaken the parent-adolescent relationship (Patterson & Bank, 1989) and thus pose a threat to healthy adolescent development. In fact, adolescent reports of severe or unresolved disagreements with their parents have been associated with many adolescent adjustment problems, including emotional difficulties (Montemayor, 1983; Robin, Koepke, & Moye, 1990), alcohol or other drug use (Brook, Whiteman, & Finch, 1993; Selnow, 1987; Thompson & Wilsnack, 1987), poor school performance (Forehand, Long, Brody, & Fauber, 1986; Robin et al., 1990), and conduct problems (Adams, Gullotta, & Clancy, 1985; Garbarino, Schellenback, & Sebes, 1986; Montemayor, 1983; Rutter, 1980). An important question, then, addresses what conditions lead to healthy parent-adolescent disagreements and what conditions result in detrimental conflict (Steinberg, 1990). A growing group of developmental scientists favors a theory suggesting that whether or not parent-adolescent conflict becomes dysfunctional (i.e., persistent or severe) depends in large part on the family context (cf. Anderson & Sabatelli, 1990; Cooper; 1988; Galatzer-Levy & Cohler, 1993; Hauser & Bowlds, 1990; Hill, 1993; Paikoff & Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Steinberg, 1990). According to this theory, an atmosphere of trust and emotional closeness among family members sets the stage for the successful resolution of parent-adolescent differences. In the absence of these qualities--that is, when critical and coercive interactions characterize the family's typical interactions--family negotiations are often doomed to failure, and differences between parents and adolescents grow to dysfunctional levels. In spite of its large following, this theory has not received a strong test due to methodological limitations in previous investigations. For example, the theory describes a process that unfolds over time. However, most studies of parent-adolescent conflict utilize a cross-sectional research design, precluding the examination of dynamic, longitudinal family interactions (e.g., Holmbeck & Hill, 1986; Sabatelli & Anderson, 1991; Werrbach, Grotevant, & Cooper, 1992; Youniss & Keterlinus, 1987). Also, this theory proposes several important factors (e.g., family atmosphere, problem-solving ability, parent-adolescent disagreements). An optimal test requires simultaneous analysis of the relationships among these factors. Unfortunately, small sample sizes have limited the power and the range of statistical techniques available to many earlier studies (Forehand et al., 1986; Papini & Sebby, 1988; Rubenstein & Feldman, 1993). Finally, the theory suggests that the family's typical interaction style sets the stage for members' behavior during a situation calling for flexible negotiations. …

Life, Death and Ambiguity in the Social Dynamics of Inner Naples

Death and mortuary practices in inner Naples are characterised by beliefs and activities related to problematic relationships between body and soul, and between this world and the other world. Death is seen as a process, a transition. This allows some softening of its meaning of social and psychological laceration and allows room for domains of ambiguity, negotiation and mediation which are crucial in the body and soul and in this world/the other world relationships as well as in local thought and practical life. Negotiation, mediation and ambiguity enhance flexibility in Neapolitans' ability to cope with the problems of ordinary life, and provide people with a frame of meanings to explain and control what is otherwise inexplicable and uncontrollable. Most of the people living in inner Naples have included the dead in coping with daily problems of existence and understanding its obscurities. Central in this philosophy is an elaborate representation of the supramundane which is strongly connected with a given idea of death. Death itself is seen as a public issue rather than a strictly private matter. It is never a hic et nunc event; it is rather a process, a transition from one clearly defined 'this worldly' state to a variety of positions in the hereafter.1 Such transition concerns both the body and the soul and is effected through complex mortuary practices. This is based on the belief that the living can, by their rites, influence the position of the dead, who are, in turn, perceived as having power in life. Similar mortuary rituals and connected symbols have been reported in rural south Italy and Europe. There is little suggestion, however, that they occur in other European urban settings. Yet, evolutionary prejudices apart, the Western urban character of the inner-city case does not preclude but indeed stimulates comparison. The ethnography presented here also suggests that in Catholic Europe a more complex relationship exists between body and soul than is generally assumed. Significantly, it is flexible negotiation rather than sharp opposition between this world and the other world which corresponds to this relationship.2 This article takes a case study from inner-city Naples to explore these questions. It is based on field research that I carried out in an inner-city area of Naples in 1978-80 and in successive visits. Drawing on this ethnographic material on death and on the relationships between body and soul and between this world and the hereafter, the article discusses the role of mediation, negotiation and ambiguity within the local philosophy and the