Negotiation Support Systems and Software Agents in E-Business Negotiations

Experiments with negotiation software agents’ in frictionless commerce indicate potential for destructive behaviour. Most of the agents are capable of engaging in auctions and have no ability to conduct complex business negotiations. Recognizing that people and software agents operate in different although overlapping spheres we propose an environment in which negotiation and decision support systems work together with software agents in electronic negotiations. Based on our experiences with the Inspire system we constructed an environment comprising software agents, and negotiation and decision support systems. One agent monitors the process, facilitates the use of Inspire, interprets the negotiators’ activities and provides methodological advice. The architecture of this environment is based on the separation of user support functions from the autonomous software activities, separation of the support for individuals from facilitation and mediation; and scalability and the ability to provide linkages with the existing software.

[1]  James K. Sebenius,et al.  The Manager as Negotiator , 1987 .

[2]  Jeffrey Z. Rubin,et al.  When should we use agents? Direct vs. representative negotiation , 1988 .

[3]  Rudolf Vetschera,et al.  Group decision and negotiation support — A methodological survey , 1990 .

[4]  Tung X. Bui,et al.  Evaluating negotiation support systems: a conceptualization , 1994, 1994 Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[5]  Andrew B. Whinston,et al.  Analysis of Negotiation Support System Research , 1995 .

[6]  I. S. Torsun.  Foundations of intelligent knowledge-based systems , 1995 .

[7]  Pattie Maes,et al.  Artificial life meets entertainment: lifelike autonomous agents , 1995, CACM.

[8]  Melvin F. Shakun.  Negotiation processes : modeling frameworks and information technology , 1996 .

[9]  Melvin F. Shakun.  Introduction to the Special Issue on Negotiation Processes: Modeling Frameworks and Information Technology , 1996 .

[10]  Colin George Harrison,et al.  Agent Sourcebook , 1997 .

[11]  Arvind Rangaswamy,et al.  Using Computers to Realize Joint Gains in Negotiations: Toward an , 1997 .

[12]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  Negotiation decision functions for autonomous agents , 1998, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[13]  Pattie Maes,et al.  Agent-mediated Electronic Commerce : A Survey , 1998 .

[14]  G. E. Kersten,et al.  Modelling business negotiations for electronic commerce , 1998 .

[15]  Michael Wooldridge,et al.  Applications of intelligent agents , 1998 .

[16]  Gregory E. Kersten,et al.  Negotiation Support Systems and Negotiating Agents , 1998 .

[17]  Pattie Maes,et al.  Agent-Mediated Integrative Negotiation for Retail Electronic Commerce , 1998, AMET.

[18]  Jyrki Wallenius,et al.  Multiple-issue auction and market algorithms for the world wide web , 1999, Decis. Support Syst..

[19]  Pattie Maes,et al.  Agents that buy and sell , 1999, CACM.

[20]  Gregory E. Kersten,et al.  WWW-based negotiation support: design, implementation, and use , 1999, Decis. Support Syst..

[21]  Gregory E. Kersten,et al.  NEGOTIATION IN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE: INTEGRATING NEGOTIATION SUPPORT AND SOFTWARE AGENT TECHNOLOGIES 1 , 1999 .

[22]  Pattie Maes,et al.  Negotiating Beyond the Bid Price , 2000 .

[23]  Michael Ströbel,et al.  On Auctions as the Negotiation Paradigm of Electronic Markets , 2000, Electron. Mark..

[24]  John Seely Brown,et al.  Book Reviews : The Social Life of Information By John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. 320 pages , 2000 .

[25]  John M. Silvester,et al.  The Social Life of Information: Brown, J.S., & Duguid, P. (2000). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing. ISBN 0-87584-762-5. 320 pages , 2000, Internet High. Educ..

[26]  P. May,et al.  The Business of Ecommerce: From Corporate Strategy to Technology , 2000 .

[27]  Gregory E. Kersten,et al.  Modeling Distributive and Integrative Negotiations. Review and Revised Characterization , 2001 .

[28]  Morad Benyoucef,et al.  Combined Negotiations in E-Commerce: Concepts and Architecture , 2001, Electron. Commer. Res..