Protocols for Electronic Negotiation Systems: Theoretical Foundations and Design Issues

Abstract

Existing electronic negotiation systems (ENSs) typically implement a single, fixed negotiation protocol, which restricts their use to negotiation problems that were anticipated and established a priori by the system designers. The single-protocol restriction limits ENSs' applicability in experiments and in many real-life negotiation situations. ENSs that allow for the use of different protocols also allow for the customization to users' needs and abilities. We present theoretical foundations for the design of flexible and highly customizable protocol-driven ENSs. Our design enables researchers and negotiators to map negotiation activities onto system components and to construct their own negotiation protocols by creating a sequence of layout programs invoking components and rules.

Inter-organizational Negotiation of Web-services

“…The WS-negotiation-process was mainly based on the negotiation framework proposed by Kim and Segev [22] and the process model for e-negotiation proposed by Kersten et al, [23]. The process consists of eleven activities, as shown in Figure 2, divided into two life cycles: the Planning and Negotiation Agenda Settings and the Negotiating and Establishing WSContract.…”

“…Thus, it is necessary that the provider organization review its feature model instance to represent its capabilities. In the negotiation literature, this revision is usually part of the negotiation agenda configuration [23]. It may demand modifications in the group of services, services and negotiation variables according to provider organizations.…”

“…In particular, in the use of feature modelling to describe the negotiated services and its focus on artefact reuse. However, some works provided a solid background, we mainly point out: (i) the frameworks of Kim and Segev [17], Comuzzi et al, [28] and Mukhtar et al, [29]; (ii) the processes of Chiu et al, [30], Kersten et al, [23] and Elfatraty and Layzell [31]; and, (iii) the model of Lin [8] to support negotiation in electronic environment. Lin [8] (1) presents a conceptual model to specify a negotiation process in a serviceoriented environment.…”

DynG: A Protocol-Based Prototype for Non-monolithic Electronic Collaboration

“…In the field of electronic negotiations, some works addressed the issue of negotiation protocols [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. According to [10], a negotiation protocol is "a formal model, often represented by a set of rules, which govern software processing, decision-making and communication tasks, and imposes restrictions on activities through the specification of permissible inputs and actions". One may consider a negotiation protocol as a collaboration protocol.…”

Modeling Structured Non-Monolithic Collaboration Processes

“…In the field of electronic negotiations, some works addressed the issue of negotiation protocols [13]. According to [6], a negotiation protocol is "a formal model, often represented by a set of rules, which govern software processing, decisionmaking and communication tasks, and imposes restrictions on activities through the specification of permissible inputs and actions". One may consider a negotiation protocol as a collaboration protocol.…”