Communication design for electronic negotiations on the basis of XML schema

Representation of negotiations in electronic markets and their support are important issues in today’s e-commerce research. Whereas most activities are focused on automation aspects, only few efforts address the design of electronic negotiations – e.g. the sequence of actions, or obligations and responsibilities of the negotiating parties. However, an explicit negotiation design can also address what is commonly referred to as the ontology problem of electronic negotiations: how can one ensure that the negotiating parties have the same understanding regarding the issues that are subject to the negotiation? The solution this paper proposes is to perform a communication design for electronic negotiations that explicitly specifies the common syntax and semantics of the negotiating parties, the logical space of the electronic negotiation. Furthermore, XML Schema is suggested as the mechanism for the runtime representation of the logical space and the validation of actual negotiations from a syntactical and semantical perspective. On the basis of this approach, organisations creating an electronic market or sellers who intend to offer their buyers the ability to bargain can design and generate support mechanisms for electronic negotiations in a flexible and efficient way. The communication design actionand meta-model presented are part of SILKROAD, a design and application framework for electronic negotiations.