Improve Negotiation Efficiency Research Articles

Understanding the Inverted U-Shaped Relationship Between Contractual Complexity and Negotiation Efficiency: An Institutional Perspective

Construction project transactions are characterized by long-term duration and a high level of task uncertainty. Improving negotiation efficiency is of great significance for the handling of task conflicts and completing projects on time. The project contract represents the legal basis for conflict negotiation between the buyer (owner) and the seller (contractor). However, a dispute still exists over the relationship between contractual complexity and negotiation efficiency. To settle this dispute, we draw on institutional theory to establish a research model and use a dataset collected from 327 construction project transactions in China to empirically test it. The results show that the relationship between contractual complexity and negotiation efficiency is inverted U-shaped. The increase in legal enforceability steepens this curvilinear relationship and moves its vertex to the lower right, meaning that the maximum negotiation efficiency is lower in an institutional environment with higher legal enforceability, despite the effect of the contract being more obvious and contractual complexity being more likely to promote negotiation efficiency in a wider range. This article can offer practical guidance for construction project managers to design contracts according to the institutional environment where the transaction is embedded in a manner that promotes negotiation efficiency.

Asymmetric information, signaling, and round listing prices: evidence from China’s housing market

ABSTRACT This paper argues that in housing transaction with asymmetric information, sellers may signal their private information with special design of listing prices. We build a cheap-talk signalling model in which sellers strategically choose round number listing prices to signal their weakness, i.e. they are willing to accept lower prices in order to sell their houses more quickly. Using housing market transaction data in Beijing, we find that round number listings sell 0.13% lower and 0.086 months sooner than precise ones. We also show that these results are unlikely to be driven by housing unobserved attributes or round number self-attractiveness. In addition, we find that as the roundness of listing price increases, the signalling effects become more pronounced. Our results present empirical evidence that signalling helps improve negotiation efficiency under asymmetric information.

Negotiation mechanism of carbon emission quota trading process

Carbon emission quota trading is an effective method for realizing carbon neutrality. Negotiation can help to effectively resolve the differences and conflicts among the trading parties in the carbon emission quota trading process. For researching the negotiation mechanism of carbon emission quota trade, we construct the agent negotiation model that introduces the risk appetite of negotiator and Bayesian algorithm. And then, the negotiation protocol is analyzed, including offer tactics, negotiation unity and termination condition. The experimental studies are given to simulate the negotiation of carbon emission quota trading process for demonstrating the validity of the negotiation model and tactics. This study demonstrates the impact of risk appetite on negotiation in the carbon emission quota trading. And can help to improve negotiation efficiency, achieve win-win and accurate matching among the trading parties of carbon emission quota.

Multi-Objective Negotiation Mechanism in Manufacturing Enterprise Supply Chain Based on Multi-Agent

In the operation of manufacturing enterprise supply chain, there are lots of conflicts and differences between the node enterprises because of the different demands on the price, quality, cost, and other factors. These conflicts and differences can be effectively solved by negotiation. In this paper, the authors will abstract different entities in manufacturing enterprise supply chain as agents, and present a negotiation mode, and then discuss the negotiation tactics and procedures between the purchasing agent and supplier agent. Next, a practical example will be discussed and simulated for validating the negotiation model. Application of negotiation tactics and models will be helpful for resolving differences and conflicts, and improving negotiation efficiency. That will be used for optimizing the supply chain management, maximizing the benefits, and improving the operational efficiency of manufacturing enterprise supply chain.

Agent-based automated persuasion with adaptive concessions tuned by emotions

Human-to-agent automated negotiation has many potentials in a variety of applications. How to design an agent with equivalent persuasion capabilities with its human rivals is the key to the success of such systems but the research on this problem is still at its early stage. With the aim of improving agents’ persuasion ability, this paper proposes to construct emotional agents and emotion-dependent persuasion actions in automated negotiation with multiple issues. First, a multi-issue evaluation function adjusted by the rival’s reputation is constructed to determine whether emotional persuasion is needed. Then, by applying the Weber-Fechner Law, this paper proposes a method to measure an agent’s emotion generated by evaluating the rival’s proposal. Persuasion is categorized into four types and an emotion-based method is proposed for an agent to select a persuasion type. The selected persuasion type is further related to updating concessions, so that an agent can make concessions adaptive to both the rival’s proposal and the focal agent’s emotional state. Moreover, a series of numerical experiments on bilateral negotiation between agents are conducted to illustrate the proposed model and validate its effectiveness in improving negotiation efficiency. Theoretical and practical implications as well as limitations are discussed in the end.

Cooperative Distribution Algorithm of Green Supply Chain Considering the Risk Aversion of Manufacturers

Considering production and marketing coordination between supply chain enterprises, this paper specifies a multi-agent supply chain concurrent negotiation model for two-stage supply chain in the supply chain environment. Coordinator is used to search optimal proposals based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) and send these proposals to other threads. Proposal strategies based on retention value and time are put forward by learning retention value of rivals through Parzen-window estimation. Simulation experiment is conducted to test negotiation performance of the model. Compared with ordinary models, the model makes two improvements as follows: (1)PSO is inserted into coordinator to improve negotiation efficiency; (2) Proposal strategies are effectively supported by Parzen-window estimation and enable agents to consider the retention values of rivals. Further researches need to be done to study trust relationship between agents and influence of external environment on supply chain negotiation solution.

Optimize negotiation price in construction procurement using Bayesian Fuzzy Game Model

The challenge of construction procurement negotiation arises partly because each negotiation side has private information on their payoff function but is uninformed of the values and strategies of the opposite side. The uncertain and limited contractor information as well as complex correlations among various factors affect contractor behaviors, making learning a supplier’s negotiation strategy and deciding the appropriate offer price difficult for contractors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to apply the forecasting ability of a novel Bayesian Fuzzy Game Model (BFGM) in providing negotiation support and recommendations for contractors determining an appropriate current bid price. The validation analysis revealed that the contractor can foresee the supplier’s future bidding strategy to increase the success rate and profit, reduce the time spent in unnecessary negotiation, and improve negotiation efficiency in the construction material procurement process. Based upon the survey data from Taiwan and Vietnam, the preliminary validation of the model shows that both contractor and supplier can obtain the profitable agreement by applying the BFGM within a reasonable negotiation time.

Agent Persuasion Mechanism of Acquaintance

Abstract Agent persuasion can improve negotiation efficiency in dynamic environment based on its initiative and autonomy, and etc., which is being affected much more by acquaintance. Classification of acquaintance on agent persuasion is illustrated, and the agent persuasion model of acquaintance is also illustrated. Then the concept of agent persuasion degree of acquaintance is given. Finally, relative interactive mechanism is elaborated.

Efficient Trust Negotiation based on Trust Evaluations and Adaptive Policies

Automated trust negotiation (ATN) is an approach that establishes mutual trust between strangers wishing to share resources or conduct business by gradually requesting and disclosing digitally signed credentials. Previous work on improving negotiation efficiency mainly focuses on using history negotiation information, which may lead to unnecessary information leakage and cannot improve the negotiation efficiency when both negotiators do not have appropriate history information. Thus in this paper, we enhance the negotiation efficiency from a new aspect, that is, adjust policies based on trust evaluations. An ATN framework is designed to enhance the negotiation efficiency. This framework can simplify the negotiation process, reduce the number of exchanged credentials and credential validations whenever possible. Furthermore, it avoids revealing unnecessary information during negotiations. This framework presents a number of innovative features, such as the support of virtual organizations and trust evaluations, and the use of fine-grained adaptive policies to adjust policies based on the trustworthiness levels. Finally, we report experimental results based on our implementation of this framework, which show that our framework can greatly enhance the negotiation efficiency whenever possible.

A Multi-Agent-Based Automatic Negotiation for Distributed Manufacturing

The concept of agent and multi-agent was introduced. The agent structure, negotiation strategies, and the negotiation mechanism were also researched. Based multi-agent, an automated negotiation method for bilateral contracts is proposed, which can efficiently carry out multilateral negotiations with multi-attributes in distributed environments. This framework supports efficiently multilateral negotiation. In the end, the negotiation is conducted and demonstrated that multi-agent can improve negotiation efficiency by saving negotiation time and cost.

Multi-Agent Approach for E-Commerce Negotiation

In a dynamic environment of e-commerce, different business entities expect to interact with each other and have their transaction time include its cost minimized. In this paper, the concept of agent and multi-agent, as well as their structure, were introduced. At the same time, the negotiation protocol, negotiation strategies and the negotiation mechanism were also researched for e-commerce negotiation. The agent technology was exploited, based on which, the negotiation system was developed. This platform would improve negotiation efficiency by saving time and cost for e-commerce.

A neural networks approach for forecasting the supplier’s bid prices in supplier selection negotiation process

Supplier selection negotiation is a sophisticated and challenged job due to the diversity of intellectual backgrounds of the negotiating parties, the many variables involved in supply–demand relationship, the complex interactions and the inadequate negotiation knowledge of project participants. To do the job well, it is necessary to develop an intelligent system for negotiation support in supplier selection process. Therefore, an artificial neural network-based predictive model with application for forecasting the supplier’s bid prices in supplier selection negotiation process (SSNP) is developed in this paper. By means of the model, demander can foresee the relationship between its alternative bids and corresponding supplier’s next bid prices in advance. The purpose of this paper is applying the model’s forecast ability to provide negotiation supports or recommendations for demander in deciding the better current bid price to decrease meaningless negotiation times, reduce procurement cost, improve negotiation efficiency or shorten supplier selection lead-time in SSNP.

Automated Trust Negotiation and Its Development Trend

Exchange of attribute credentials is an important means to establish mutual trust between strangers who wish to share resources or conduct business transactions. Automated trust negotiation (ATN) is an approach to regulate the exchange of sensitive credentials by using access control policies, so as to protect sensitive credentials, policies and private privacy, and to improve negotiation efficiency and successful negotiation establishment rate. A detailed review of the research on ATN is presented based on the survey and classification of the current negotiation techniques. According to the precise investigation on ATN, the pitfalls of ATN are pointed out and the reasonable rules that ATN should observe are put forward, meanwhile, the development trend for ATN is proposed.

Intelligent agents for supporting construction procurement negotiation

Negotiation is commonly required to reach a final contractual agreement in construction material procurement. However, even simple negotiations often result in suboptimal agreements, thus 'leaving money on the table.' An automated system that could evaluate bids, negotiate to finalize the bid, and value the individual characteristics of negotiating parties would be useful to both contractors and suppliers. This study examines common negotiable issues and options for construction material procurement, and presents an agent-based system, named C-Negotiators, that helps a contractor and suppliers to negotiate via the Internet. Genetic algorithm is used to find the most beneficial agreement for all parties, and web-based development is used to improve negotiation efficiency. Experiments also were conducted and demonstrated that C-Negotiators improved negotiation efficiency by saving negotiation time and cost, and improved negotiation effectiveness by suggesting a better agreement with higher joint payoff. Although the increase in payoff was smaller than expected, the improvement should increase for more complex negotiation problems involving more issues and options, or complicated preferences and for inexperienced negotiators. The application of the system is mainly limited by its symmetric optimization, while procurement negotiations in the construction industry are biased towards the contractor, and also by user comfort with their preferences and negotiations being monitored by the system.