Authors:
Anderson P. Avila-Santos
;
Jhonatan Hulse
;
Daniel S. Kaster
and
Evandro Baccarin
Affiliation:
University of Londrina, Brazil
Keyword(s):
Multiparty e-Contracts, Negotiation Protocol, Auction, Coalition, Consultation, Multiparty Negotiation, Fairness.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agents
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems
;
Collaborative Computing
;
Distributed and Mobile Software Systems
;
Electronic Commerce
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Internet Agents
;
Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Multi-Agent Systems
;
Software Agents and Internet Computing
;
Software Engineering
;
Symbolic Systems
;
Virtual Enterprises
Abstract:
This paper argues that software agents may build two kinds of coalitions in e-negotiation processes. The first is
the typical one in which the parties define roles, rights, guarantees before the negotiation starts. They act as a
team. Either the whole coalition succeeds in the negotiation or fails. In the second one, addressed by this paper,
the coalition members are competitors. They collaborate exchanging information before the negotiation trying
to align their strategies to some degree. Such collaboration only occurs because there is some particularity
(e.g., nearness) that can optimise their business processes if most of the coalition members succeed in the
negotiation. They aim at maximising their chances of success in the negotiation, but act solo. It is important
to note that the main challenge in this scenario lays on the fact that the coalition members are not bind to the
coalition. They may act within the negotiation differently from what they had agreed previously. This gi
ves
rise to the concept of fairness, which is discussed in this paper. The paper also argues that the materialisation
of coalitions within a negotiation protocol fits better in a multiparty negotiation protocol. Thus, it extends the
SPICA Negotiation Protocol with the so-called consultations. The paper presents a study case that shows that
consultations can be benefic to the suppliers, the industry and the consumers.
(More)