Agent-based assistant for e-negotiations

Knowledge about conflict styles and time pressure during a negotiation are important factors in a negotiation. This knowledge is used to model an agent-based assistant for e-negotiations. The idea of the proposed method is to model a utility concession function depending on the conflict style behaviour of a negotiator. Negotiators, prior to engage in e-negotiations, are asked to fill in a questionnaire designed to measure the conflict mode and specify their reservation levels. The agent-based assistant uses reservation levels and a concession-making model to propose the concession and timing of offers and attributes e.g. in a multi-attribute negotiation. The concession-making model is constructed in the utility space and it is constructed using the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and negotiation data from an experiment conducted by human negotiators.