Fuzzy Representation of Principal’s Preferences in Inspire Negotiation Support System

We consider the negotiation problem, in which an agent negotiates on behalf of a principal. Our considerations are focused on the Inspire negotiation support system in which the principal’s preferences are visualised by circles. In this way, the principal describes the importance of each negotiation issue and the relative utility of each considered option. The paper proposes how this preference information may be implemented by the agent for determining a scoring function used to support decisions throughout the negotiation process. The starting point of our considerations is a discussion regarding the visualisation of the principal’s preferences. We assume here that the importance of each issue and the utility of each option increases with the size of the circle representing them. The imprecise meaning of the notion of “circle size” implies that in a considered case, the utility of an option should be evaluated by a fuzzy number. The proposed utility fuzzification is justified by a simple analysis of results obtained from the empirical prenegotiation experiment. A novel method is proposed to determine trapezoidal fuzzy numbers, which evaluates an option’s utility using a series of answers given by the participants of the experiment. The utilities obtained this way are applied to determine the fuzzy scoring function for an agent. By determining such a common generalised fuzzy scoring system, our approach helps agents handle the differences in human cognitive processes associated with understanding the principal’s preferences. This work is the first approach to fuzzification of the preferences in the Inspire negotiation support system.

The Multi-Criteria Negotiation Analysis Based on the Membership Function

In this paper we propose a multi-criteria model based on the fuzzy preferences approach which can be implemented in the prenegotiation phase to evaluate the negotiations packages. The applicability of some multi-criteria ranking methods were discussed for building a scoring function for negotiation packages. The first one is Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) technique which determines the sum of the partial satisfactions from each negotiation issue and aggregate them using the issue weights. The other one is Distance Based Methods (DBM), with its extension based on the distances to ideal or anti-ideal package, i.e. the TOPSIS procedure. In our approach the negotiator's preferences over the issues are represented by fuzzy membership functions and next a selected multi-criteria decision making method is adopted to determine the global rating of each package. The membership functions are used here as the equivalents of utility functions spread over the negotiation issues, which let us compare different type of data. One of the key advantages of the approach proposed is its usefulness for building a general scoring function in the ill-structured negotiation problem, namely the situation in which the problem itself as well as the negotiators preferences cannot be precisely defined, the available information is uncertain, subjective and vague. Secondly, all proposed variants of scoring functions produce consistent rankings, even though the new packages are added (or removed) and do not result in rank reversal.

negotiation behaviors in agent-based negotiation support systems

Prior research on negotiation support systems (NSS) has paid limited attention to the information content in the observed bid sequences of negotiators as well as on the cognitive limitations of individual negotiators and their impacts on negotiation performance. In this paper, we assess the performance of human subjects in the context of agent-based NSS, and the accuracy of an exponential functional form in representing observed human bid sequences. We then predict the reservation values of negotiators based on their observed bids. Finally, we study the impact of negotiation support systems in helping users realize superior negotiation outcomes. Results indicate that an exponential function is a good model for observed bids. Based on the negotiation behaviors of human subjects, we find that accurate estimates of opponent reservation values for the negotiation issue that is most important to subjects, improves negotiation outcomes when an agreement is reached. Results also show that bids are correlated with reservation values, and that automated negotiations using NSS can lead to superior negotiation outcomes compared to human subjects.

Negotiation Issues for Part-Time Workers : The Impact of Occupation

Focusing on 117 union locals that had collective agreements for part-time and full-time workers in Ontario, this study showed that negotiation issues varied for part-time workers depending on their occupation. Those in non-professional occupations wanted to limit the number or percentage of part-time work in their bargaining units, while for professionals this was an unimportant negotiation issue. Negotiating the same wages and benefits for part-time and full-time workers, and equality in filling full-time vacancies, were similarly important for both groups of workers.