Negotiation Decision Support System Research Articles

Modeling and Implementation of a New Negotiation Decision Support System for Conflict Resolution Under Uncertainty

Modeling and Implementation of a New Negotiation Decision Support System for Conflict Resolution Under Uncertainty

Framing a Knowledge Base for a Legal Expert System Dealing with Indeterminate Concepts.

Despite decades of development of formal tools for modelling legal knowledge and reasoning, the creation of a fully fledged legal decision support system remains challenging. Among those challenges, such system requires an enormous amount of commonsense knowledge to derive legal expertise. This paper describes the development of a negotiation decision support system (the Parenting Plan Support System or PPSS) to support parents in drafting an agreement (the parenting plan) for the exercise of parental custody of minor children after a divorce is granted. The main objective here is to discuss problems of framing an intuitively appealing and computationally efficient knowledge base that can adequately represent the indeterminate legal concept of the well-being of the child in the context of continental legal culture and of Polish law in particular. In addition to commonsense reasoning, interpretation of such a concept demands both legal expertise and significant professional knowledge from other domains.

Considering Attitudes in Strategic Negotiation over Brownfield Disputes

An innovative negotiation methodology for resolving disputes in brownfield reconstruction is presented for handling negotiation in the presence of multiple decision makers (more than two). A unique feature of the proposed negotiation methodology is that it takes into account the attitudes of the decision makers, which is an important psychological factor in construction negotiations. The methodology is developed at the strategic level of decision making in which the graph model for conflict resolution is employed to help participants determine the most beneficial strategic agreement, given the competing interests and attitudes of the decision makers. A real-life case study of a brownfield reconstruction negotiation is used to illustrate how the proposed methodology can be conveniently applied in practice and to demonstrate the importance and the benefits of incorporating the attitudes of multiple decision makers into the negotiation process in order to better identify the most feasible resolutions. The proposed negotiation methodology is implemented in a negotiation decision support system that assists managers in tackling real-world controversies, particularly complex construction disputes.

Attitude-Based Strategic Negotiation for Conflict Management in Construction Projects

An innovative negotiation methodology for managing conflicts in construction projects is presented in this article where multiple decision makers are involved. The proposed negotiation methodology has a unique ability to consider the attitudes of the decision makers, which is an important psychological factor in the negotiations that take place in various stages of a construction project. The methodology is developed at the strategic level of decision making in which the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR) is employed in assisting decision makers, such as project managers, to achieve the best strategic decision, given the competing interests and attitudes of the decision makers. A real-life case study is used to illustrate how the proposed methodology can be conveniently applied in practice and to demonstrate the importance and the benefits of incorporating the attitudes of multiple decision makers into the negotiation process in order to better identify the most feasible resolutions. The proposed negotiation methodology has been implemented in a negotiation decision support system that assists project managers in tackling real-world controversies, particularly in complex disputes that occur in construction projects.

Combined strategic and tactical negotiation methodology for resolving complex brownfield conflicts

An innovative negotiation methodology for strategic and tactical decision making is proposed for resolving conflicts in brownfield redevelopment. At the strategic level, the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution is systematically employed for determining a potential overall agreement, or set of resolutions, that is politically possible given the competing interests of the decision makers involved in a brownfield redevelopment project. At the tactical level, a possible strategic solution can be studied in depth using utility theory to determine trade-offs or concessions needed to reach a mutually acceptable detailed solution. Also, the proposed negotiation methodology can take into account the attitudes of negotiators and investigates the impact of the negotiators' attitudes on the outcome of negotiations at both levels of negotiation. The design of a negotiation decision support system is put forward to allow the proposed negotiation methodology to be conveniently applied to actual disputes.

Negotiation Decision Support Systems: Analysing Negotiations under the Conditions of Risk

Negotiation Theory is a research area with emphasis from three different research streams being game theory, psychology and negotiation analysis. Recently, negotiation theory research has moved towards the combination of game theory and psychology negotiation theory models that could be called Integrated Negotiation Theory (INT). As, negotiations are often impacted by external factors, there is risk associated with achieving the expected outcomes. Prospect theory and Negotiation theory are combined in this paper to incorporate the risk associated within negotiations. Negotiation Decision Support Systems (NDSS) is an information technology tool using negotiation theory and artificial intelligence to assist disputants in a negotiation to obtain better negotiated outcomes than they can obtain otherwise. Due primarily to the limitations of bounded rationality and differing mental or physical state of the disputant. In the past, NDSS have primarily used game theory within their negotiation and decision making framework to assist disputants resolve negotiations, as game theory is easier to incorporate. This paper shows how INT and Risk Factors (Prospect Theory) can be incorporated into an NDSS to improve negotiation decision making.

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.

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.

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.