WS—Negotiation: An overview of Research Issues

Internet and web technologies have dramatically changed the way enterprises conduct business and how they compete. So companies of all size are necessary to increase the speed of communication with their customers. More abstractly, they are forced to speed up the treatment of information, if we consider a company as a control center of information. That is, to automate interactions with their business partners, including suppliers and manufacturers as well as their customers, leaving the computer doing all the repeated things that no need human being’s intervention. Companies may receive purchase orders from individual consumers or business partners, deliver goods and services, and accept payments, etc. All of these actions need NEGOTIATION. Negotiation is an important business activity of an enterprise. Traditionally, negotiations are conducted by people involved in business transactions. However, in the context of e-commerce, in both B2B and B2C transactions, it is often desirable to carry out these interventions only when necessary. But how to automate the process of negotiation? There are two tasks we have to do in advance: 1. formalize the process of negotiation, 2.incorporate necessary negotiation knowledge and intelligence into the computer system. But, negotiation in the real world is a very complex process, which involves participants to make individual decisions and to interact with each other. More troublesome problem, negotiation may involve issues of culture, ego and prejudice. Thus, a more sophisticated business model with negotiation feature is required for this challenging research field.