Negotiation Decision Research Articles

Knowledge discovery for adaptive negotiation agents in e-marketplaces

Intelligent software agents are promising in improving the effectiveness of e-marketplaces for e-commerce. Although a large amount of research has been conducted to develop negotiation protocols and mechanisms for e-marketplaces, existing negotiation mechanisms are weak in dealing with complex and dynamic negotiation spaces often found in e-commerce. This paper illustrates a novel knowledge discovery method and a probabilistic negotiation decision making mechanism to improve the performance of negotiation agents. Our preliminary experiments show that the probabilistic negotiation agents empowered by knowledge discovery mechanisms are more effective and efficient than the Pareto optimal negotiation agents in simulated e-marketplaces.

Condescending and Manipulative Yet Suicidal–Negotiating with a Difficult Subject

ABSTRACT This case study examines a barricaded, suicidal person who was exceedingly condescending and manipulative toward the cri sis negotiators. By examining this person's actions and the verbal tactics by the negotiators, specific lessons can be learned in dealing with suicidal person's who does not necessary display a depressive mood. The case study further examines negotiation and incident commander decision making and the interaction with SWAT.

Discharge Decision-Making, Enabling Occupations, and Client-Centred Practice

Occupational therapists working in hospitals are confronted with increasingly complex discharge decisions. However, the relationship of discharge-planning strategies to the professional concepts of client-centred practice and enabling occupations has been unclear. This study explored the relationship between the models of decision-making used by occupational therapists, and the professional issues of enabling occupation and client-centred practice. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 occupational therapists. Data were analyzed for the presence and emergence of themes. Therapists try to balance the sometimes competing issues of safety and autonomy. Therapists often engage in negotiated decision-making. However, clients are sometimes excluded, despite therapists' commitment to client-centred processes. Consideration of occupations is often neglected. Client-defined models of decision-making are insufficient for frail, cognitively- impaired people. A new, client-centred Negotiated Model of Decision-Making is proposed, which facilitates decisions to enable older people with their occupations.

Learning-based automated negotiation between shipper and forwarder

This paper studies an automated negotiation system by means of a learning-based approach. Negotiation between shipper and forwarder is used as an example in which the issues of negotiation are unit shipping price, delay penalty, due date, and shipping quantity. A data ratios method is proposed as the input of the neural network technique to explore the learning in automated negotiation with the negotiation decision functions (NDFs) developed by [Faratin, P., Sierra, C., & Jennings, N.R. (1998). Negotiation Decision Functions for Autonomous Agents. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 24 (3), 159-182]. The concession tactic and weight of every issue offered by the opponent can be learned from this process exactly. After learning, a trade-off mechanism can be applied to achieve better negotiation result on the distance to Pareto optimal solution. Based on the results of this study, we believe that our findings can provide more insight into agent-based negotiation and can be applied to improve negotiation processes.

What do people value when they negotiate? Mapping the domain of subjective value in negotiation.

Four studies support the development and validation of a framework for understanding the range of social psychological outcomes valued subjectively as consequences of negotiations. Study 1 inductively elicited and coded elements of subjective value among students, community members, and practitioners, revealing 20 categories that theorists in Study 2 sorted into 4 underlying subconstructs: Feelings About the Instrumental Outcome, Feelings About the Self, Feelings About the Negotiation Process, and Feelings About the Relationship. Study 3 proposed a new Subjective Value Inventory (SVI) and confirmed its 4-factor structure. Study 4 presents convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity data for the SVI. Indeed, subjective value was a better predictor than economic outcomes of future negotiation decisions. Results suggest the SVI is a promising tool to systematize and encourage research on subjective outcomes of negotiation.

Bilateral negotiation decisions with uncertain dynamic outside options

We present a model for bilateral negotiations that considers the uncertain and dynamic outside options. Outside options affect the negotiation strategies via their impact on the reservation price. The model is composed of three modules: single-threaded negotiations, synchronized multithreaded negotiations, and dynamic multithreaded negotiations. These three modules embody increased sophistication and complexity. The single-threaded negotiation model provides negotiation strategies without specifically considering outside options. The model of synchronized multithreaded negotiations builds on the single-threaded negotiation model and considers the presence of concurrently existing outside options. The model of dynamic multithreaded negotiations expands the synchronized multithreaded model by considering the uncertain outside options that may come dynamically in the future. Experimental analysis is provided to characterize the impact of outside options on the reservation price and thus on the negotiation strategy. The results show that the utility of a negotiator improves significantly if he/she considers outside options, and the average utility is higher when he/she considers both the concurrent outside options and the foresees future options

Emoções, inteligência e negociação: um estudo empírico sobre a percepção dos gerentes portugueses

A investigação sobre negociação no contexto empresarial tem-se concentrado nos aspectos processuais e de decisão, ignorando o estudo das características individuais do negociador.Alguma literatura mais recente destaca o impacto decisivo que o perfil da inteligência pode ter nos resultados da negociação. Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a importância da Inteligência Cognitiva e da Inteligência Emocional nas negociações em contexto empresarial. Para o efeito, foi realizado um estudo empírico das percepções dos gerentes das 500 maiores empresas portuguesas sobre a importância de algumas características da inteligência e o papel da emoção na negociação. Os resultados revelam que os gerentes atribuem maior importância aos aspectos cognitivos do queaos aspectos emocionais. É igualmente sugerido que o controle das emoções e da sua visibilidade é determinante para o êxito do negociador; mas a sua manipulação é um comportamento reprovável no ambiente negocial. Com esta pesquisa descritiva e exploratória, pretende-se lançar pistas para investigações futuras sobre a importância da emoção e da inteligência nos processos negociais.

INTELCITY AND MULTIPLE CRITERIA WEB-BASED NEGOTIATION DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR REAL ESTATE

The authors of this paper together with the other VGTU scientists participate in the international project INTELCITIES and present Multiple Criteria Web‐Based Negotiation Decision Support System for Real Estate (NDSSRE). INTELCITIES project is a research and development project that aims to pool advanced knowledge and experience of e‐government, planing systems and citizen participation. NDSS‐RE includes a decision support tool based on the methods of alternative generation and multiple criteria analysis that enable negotiating parties to evaluate their systems of preferences and recognize opportunities for trade‐off between differently valued objectives and joint gains. At present the developed NDSS‐RE allows for the performance of the following functions: search for real estate alternatives; finding out alternatives and making an initial negotiation table; multiple criteria analyses of alternatives; negotiation based on real calculations; determination of the most rational real estate purchase variant on the ground of characteristics describing effectiveness of the analysed alternatives. The third part of the paper deals with traditional negotiation principles and describes negotiation tactics, such as “The Atractive Alternative”, “The Stall and Jolt”, “The Comparative Value”, “The Third Party”, “The No More Money” and “The Walk Away” tactics. More traditional negotiation principles and tactics have been planned to integrate in future concerning the described NDSS‐RE system because the knowledge and implementation of all the above mentioned tactics and principles lead to more successful negotiation for the lowest possible price buying real estate.

Bargaining with incomplete information

This paper analyses the process and outcomes of competitive bilateral negotiation for a model based on negotiation decision functions. Each agent has time constraints in the form of a deadline and a discounting factor. The importance of information possessed by participants is highlighted by exploring all possible incomplete information scenarios -- both symmetric and asymmetric. In particular, we examine a range of negotiation scenarios in which the amount of information that agents have about their opponent's parameters is systematically varied. For each scenario, we determine the equilibrium solution and study its properties. The main results of our study are as follows. Firstly, in some scenarios agreement takes place at the earlier deadline, while in others it takes place near the beginning of negotiation. Secondly, in some scenarios the price surplus is split equally between the agents while in others the entire price surplus goes to a single agent. Thirdly, for each possible scenario, the equilibrium outcome possesses the properties of uniqueness and symmetry -- although it is not always Pareto optimal. Finally, we also show the relative impacts of the opponent's parameters on the bargaining outcome.

Developing Negotiation Decision Support Systems that Support Mediators: A Case Study of the Family_Winner System

Negotiation Support Systems have traditionally modelled the process of negotiation. They often rely on mathematical optimisation techniques and ignore heuristics and other methods derived from practice. Our goal is to develop systems capable of decision support to help resolve a given dispute. A system we have constructed, Family_Winner, uses empirical evidence to dynamically modify initial preferences throughout the negotiation process. It sequentially allocates issues using trade-offs and compensation opportunities inherent in the dispute.

Cultural Influence on Managerial Thinking

Culture has always been a source of influence on human behaviour. It affects the way in which individual processes information and reasons in negotiation and other organisational decisions. In today's competitive world, the work place is more unstable and unpredictable than before. To make right judgment in the right context is the right choice of the present time. This study made an attempt to establish a link between organizational culture and managerial thinking. This kind of analysis would help managers to adapt particular tactics to effectively deal with people in one cultural context. The objective of the study was to examine the impact of organizational culture on managerial thinking and to develop possible OD interventions to enhance executive effectiveness. The present study followed a 2x2x2 factorial design of research where 400 managers/executives (front line and middle level) of MNCs and PSUs in manufacturing and service-oriented organisation were administered on Organisational Culture Questionnaire (Udai Pareek, 1989) and Managerial Thinking Style Inventory (Gangopadhyay, 1993). The findings of the study revealed that there exist significant difference between managers of MNCs and PSUs with regard to Managerial Thinking Styles and preference for a particular Organisational Culture Profile. The managers in MNCs preferred autocratic, technocratic and entrepreneurial culture profiles in comparison to managers of PSUs who showed preference for bureaucratic culture. With regard to managerial thinking, it was observed that managers of MNCs relied more on analyzer and implementer type of thinking style than the managers of PSUs who believed in collaborator style of thinking. The future implications of the study were discussed in the light of present findings in this paper. The authors have also suggested few possible OD interventions to enhance executive effectiveness.

A Comparison of Auditor and Client Negotiation Decisions

This study examines the negotiation decisions made by professional auditors and clients when facing a revenue recognition conflict. Specifically, we investigate the degree of flexibility inherent in auditor and client negotiation decisions, whether auditors and clients accurately perceive the other negotiating party's positions, and the types of negotiation tactics used by both parties. The results indicate that auditors and clients approach conflict resolution in very different ways. Clients were more flexible (i.e., exhibited a greater difference between their revenue recognition goals and limits), determined the auditor's goals and limits more accurately, and were more likely to use negotiation tactics such as bid high/concede later and trade-off one reporting issue for another. These data are consistent with the view that auditors are hired to provide independent, accurate judgments on financial reporting matters, and may therefore consider their accounting decisions to be less open for negotiation as compared to clients. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Evaluating NDF-based negotiation mechanism within an agent-based environment

We investigate the properties of a negotiation mechanism that is based on negotiation decision functions (NDFs) in an agent-based system. The study employs both analytical and simulation approaches. Analysis and evaluation of negotiation tactics and strategies indicated that negotiation deadline significantly influences the convergence performance of the negotiation. Some important properties of the negotiation convergence are analyzed, and a set of experiments are carried out among agents for typical negotiation tactics and strategies to investigate negotiation fairness with respect to the mean difference of deal values and convergence characteristics. A preliminary study on the efficiency of NDF as compared to TAC agents and Pareto optimal is done as well.

Towards using computational methods for real-time negotiations in electronic commerce

This paper attempts to construct a sound basis to support real-time negotiation decision-making by carefully applying concepts from the area of computational geometry, to meet the increasing decision requirements of electronic commerce. To achieve this, a method is discussed that models decision preferences and traces exact or close matches to these preferences in real-time, therefore allowing the decision maker to form a starting point of negotiations, while being realistic in individual expectations. The paper also discusses the implications and restrictions of such an approach and its future application in the deployment of decision support systems.

Using similarity criteria to make issue trade-offs in automated negotiations

Automated negotiation is a key form of interaction in systems that are composed of multiple autonomous agents. The aim of such interactions is to reach agreements through an iterative process of making offers. The content of such proposals are, however, a function of the strategy of the agents. Here we present a strategy called the trade-off strategy where multiple negotiation decision variables are traded-off against one another (e.g., paying a higher price in order to obtain an earlier delivery date or waiting longer in order to obtain a higher quality service). Such a strategy is commonly known to increase the social welfare of agents. Yet, to date, most computational work in this area has ignored the issue of trade-offs, instead aiming to increase social welfare through mechanism design. The aim of this paper is to develop a heuristic computational model of the trade-off strategy and show that it can lead to an increased social welfare of the system. A novel linear algorithm is presented that enables software agents to make trade-offs for multi-dimensional goods for the problem of distributed resource allocation. Our algorithm is motivated by a number of real-world negotiation applications that we have developed and can operate in the presence of varying degrees of uncertainty. Moreover, we show that on average the total time used by the algorithm is linearly proportional to the number of negotiation issues under consideration. This formal analysis is complemented by an empirical evaluation that highlights the operational effectiveness of the algorithm in a range of negotiation scenarios. The algorithm itself operates by using the notion of fuzzy similarity to approximate the preference structure of the other negotiator and then uses a hill-climbing technique to explore the space of possible trade-offs for the one that is most likely to be acceptable.

Managing Anxiety in Negotiated Decision-Making

In organizations of the new era, managing requires securing commitment to a course of action - i.e., negotiating - rather than using power to force compliance. Factoring in managers' emotional experience produces new insights about effective managerial negotiation. Traditional approaches to studying negotiation have largely overlooked emotion, instead emphasizing tactics and payoffs. Yet clinical psychologists and practicing managers know that anxiety, an emotion strongly shaped by personality and culture, is a major consideration because it affects negotiation success. This article shows that anxiety has different triggers in different people. For example, men tend to be anxious about in a transaction, women tend to be anxious about relationship damage, and Asians may be most anxious about losing face. The net result is the same: the manager experiences anxiety and reacts in ways that impair her or his effectiveness in the interaction. And, to the extent that the causes of the anxiety differ from case to case, so, too, must the intervention approaches be different. In sum, managers must be able to understand anxiety dynamics if they are to deal with them effectively.

Negotiation and Defeasible Decision Making

In economically meaningful interactions negotiations are particularly important because they allow agents to improve their information about the environment and even to change accordingly their own characteristics. In each step of a negotiation an agent has to emit a message. This message conveys information about her preferences and endowments. Given that the information she uses to decide which message to emit comes from beliefs generated in previous stages of the negotiation, she has to cope with the uncertainty associated with them. The assessment of the states of the world also evolves during the negotiation. In this paper we analyze the intertwined dynamics of beliefs and decision, in order to determine conditions on the agents that allow them to reach agreements. The framework for decision making we consider here is based on defeasible evaluation of possibilities: an argument for a choice defeats another one if it is based on a computation that better uses all the available information.

Nonconsequential Reasoning and Its Consequences

According to consequentialism, which underlies the rational theory of choice, decisions should be determined by an assessment of the potential consequences. People, however, do not always consider the relevance of missing information in a consequentialist manner. As a result, they sometimes pursue noninstrumental information—information that may appear relevant but ought not alter the decision. Having pursued such information, people misconstrue it as instrumental for the decision and proceed to make choices they would not otherwise have made. This pattern is observed in the context of consumer, medical, and negotiation decisions. In one scenario, for example, participants made a hypothetical decision about whether to purchase a CD player. Those who chose to postpone and then found out about another component's repair cost were less likely to buy the CD player than those who knew about the required repair cost from the start. Because the initial pursuit and ensuing use of obtained information appear exceedingly reasonable, such decision patterns may be difficult to learn to avoid, yielding decisions that are influenced by contextual nuances that ought not matter. Further research may explore cognitive and motivational factors in nonconsequential reasoning and their normative and prescriptive implications.

Assessing the quality of negotiated proposals using the REMBRANDT system

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.

First experiences with a negotiation decision support system contributing to milk price elaboration in Corsica

Abstract Milk pricing in Corsica is particularly affected by the secular traditions in sheep farming. The situation is now being exacerbated by the new constraints imposed by the international market conditions as well as by the large number of parties involved in the production and processing continuum. Establishing milk prices as far as quality is concerned presupposes: (a) a definition of standards, and (b) a convergence of different interests. Experiments were recently undertaken using a negotiation decision support system (NDSS) offered to farmers and industrial dairies by INRA researchers. This system seems to offer promising perspectives, both through the multiplication and storage of data and the serenity of the discussions that take place around a screen-relayed dialogue. It appears both desirable and possible for the experiment to be extended to cover other farm types. Nevertheless in its present form, this study should be seen as a first experiment in using the tool. The goal is neither to reach effective negotiation between the farmers and the dairies nor to establish, through this NDSS, a general forecasting model for all the responses to be expected during the development stages of this tool. The first aim is primarily educational, to induce and participate in the building of a ‘collective mind’ by better formalising the development phenomena.