Gregory E. Kersten

WWW-based negotiation support: design, implementation, and use

Support for international negotiations requires integration of decision-theoretic approaches with communication facilities, and different visualization modes. In addition, negotiation support systems (NSS) should also be tailored to different cultural and educational backgrounds of their users. While there have been studies on cross-cultural negotiations involving simple game or economic models, there have been no experiments with NSS in international and cross-cultural contexts. At the same time the emergence and quickly spreading use of the World Wide Web (WWW) and electronic commerce indicates the potential of NSS supporting commercial transactions across borders. This paper presents INSPIRE, the first Web-based NSS that has been tested and used in teaching and training in several countries. Developed in the context of a cross-cultural study of decision making and negotiation, it has been primarily used to conduct and study negotiation via WWW as well as in teaching and training. The architecture of INSPIRE, which relies heavily on the net-centric computing paradigm and object oriented design, is also discussed.

Towards a Structured Design of Electronic Negotiations

Global communication networks and advances in information technology enable the design of information systems facilitating effective formulation and efficient resolution of negotiation problems. Increasingly, these systems guide negotiators in clarifying the relevant issues, provide media for offer formulation and exchange, and help in achieving an agreement. In practice, the task of analysing, modelling, designing and implementing electronic negotiation media demands a systematic, traceable and reproducible approach. An engineering approach to media specification and construction has these characteristics. In this paper, we provide a rationale for the engineering approach that allows pragmatic adoption of economic and social sciences perspectives on negotiated decisions for the purpose of supporting and undertaking electronic negotiations. Similarities and differences of different theories that underlie on-going studies of electronic negotiations are identified. This provides a basis for integration of different theories and approaches for the specific purpose of the design of effective electronic negotiations. Drawing on diverse streams of literature in different fields such as economics, management, computer, and behavioural sciences, we present an example of an integration of three significant streams of theoretical and applied research involving negotiations, traditional auctions and on-line auctions.

NEGO—group decision support system

Abstract There are two major frameworks for decision making: maximizing and satisficing. A combination of both may be used to describe group decision making (GDM). In the satisficing approach, decision makers (DMs) formulate aspiriation levels or demands which take the form of constraints. Choosing from among different decisions, DMs take into account their preferences or wants, which take the form of objective functions. GDM is divided into two stages: first, each DM makes a decision, and second, DMs negotiate so as to achieve a compromise decision. Negotiating is an iterative process. Negotiations are completed when all demands have been met. The group decision support system “NEGO” assists DMs in finding a compromise. It has been used for solving a GDM problem at the corporate level and is currently utilized in management courses.

Negoplan: an expert system shell for negotiation support

The authors address a complex, two-party negotiation problem containing the following elements: (1) many negotiation issues that are elements of a negotiating partys position; (2) negotiation goals that can be reduced to unequivocal statements about the problem domain and that represent negotiation issues; (3) a fluid negotiating environment characterized by changing issues and relations between them; and (4) parties negotiating to achieve goals that may change. They describe in some detail the way they logically specify different aspects of negotiation. An application of Negoplan to a labor contract negotiation between the Canadian Paperworkers Union and CIP, Ltd. of Montreal is described.<<ETX>>

An Introduction to Group Decision and Negotiation Support

Group decision making and negotiation are important managerial activities, yet difficult to understand and support. The associated complexity is due to the multi-person, dynamic, and ill- structured environment in which these activities take place. Recent advances in information technology create new opportunities for supporting group decision and negotiation processes.

Negotiation via the World Wide Web: A cross-cultural study of decision making

INSPIRE is a Web-based system for the support and conduct of negotiations. The primary uses of the system are training and research. Between July 1996 and April 1997, 281 bilateral negotiations were conducted through the system by managers, engineers and students from over 50 countries. INSPIRE has been used at eight universities and training centers. In research it is being used to study cross-cultural differences in decision making and the use of computer support in negotiation. This paper outlines the system, the negotiation methodology embedded in it, and reports the initial results of the experimental study of the impact of culture on Web-based bilateral negotiation.

Generalized approach to modeling negotiations

Abstract Based on a concept of pressure which is more general and flexible than the commonly accepted utility approach, this paper develops a general approach for structuring modelling negotiations. The proposed model makes it possible to combine satisficing and optimizing approaches and to discover the best satisficing compromise which may be a dominated or even a non-vertex solution. The set of notions and definitions enables description of different types of negotiations and from different points of view. Two models of simple types of negotiations which are presented in the paper give a basis for further research on more complex types of negotiations.

Decision station: situating decision support systems

Internet facilitates access to data, information, and knowledge sources, but at the same time, it threatens to cognitively overload the decision makers. This necessitates the development of effective decision support tools to properly inform the decision process. Internet technologies require new type of decision support that provides tighter integration and higher degree of direct interaction with the problem domain. The central argument of this work is that in dynamic and highly complex electronic environments decision support systems (DSSs) should be situated in the problem domain. A generic architecture, the set of capabilities for our vision of a situated DSS is proposed, and the architecture is illustrated with a DSS for investment management.

e-Negotiation Systems and Software Agents: Methods, Models, and Applications

Negotiation is a decentralized decision-making process that seeks to find an agreement that will satisfy the requirements of two or more parties in the presence of limited common knowledge and conflicting preferences. Negotiation participants are agents who negotiate on their own behalf or represent the interests of their principals. When electronic negotiations enter the stage, these agents could be intelligent software entities that take part in the process of searching for an acceptable agreement. The degree of involvement of these “intelligent agents” in negotiations can range from supporting human negotiators (e. g. information search, offer evaluation) to fully automating the conduct of negotiations. Choosing the degree of involvement depends upon the characteristics of the problem in the negotiation. In this chapter, we review electronic negotiation systems and intelligent agents for negotiations. Different types of negotiation agents, their roles and requirements, and various methods for effective support or conduct of negotiations are discussed. Selected applications of intelligent negotiation agents are presented.

National Cultural Differences in the Use and Perception of Internet-based NSS: Does High or Low Context Matter?

In this article, we apply an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore whether national culture influences a users perception and use of Internet-based negotiation support systems (NSS). In particular, we are interested in whether different preferences for communication patterns, as we find them for low-context and high-context cultures, influence the use and perception of different NSS support tools. The Web-based system Inspire, which provided data for our analysis has been used by over 2000 entities worldwide in experimental negotiations. Our results show that, based on the need to establish a social context in computermediated negotiations, users from high-context cultures exchange significantly more messages and offers during negotiations than users from low-context cultures. Analytical negotiation support is valued significantly higher by users from low-context cultures than by users from highcontext cultures as this problem-solving approach is more compatible with their preference for direct and task-oriented communication.