Optimal multi-issue negotiation in open and dynamic environments

Abstract

Multi-issue negotiations can lead negotiants to the "win-win" (optimal) outcomes which is not applicable in single issue negotiations. Negotiants' preferences on all negotiated issues in multi-issue negotiations impact the negotiation results a lot. Most of existing multi-issue negotiation strategies are based on the situation that all negotiants have fixed preferences, and very little work has been done on situations when negotiants modify their preferences during the negotiation. However, as the negotiation environment becomes open and dynamic, negotiants may modify their preferences dynamic for higher profits. The motivation of this paper is to propose a novel optimal multi-issue negotiations approach to handle the situation when negotiants' preferences are changed. In this model, agents' preferences are predicted dynamic based on the historical records of the current negotiation, then optimal offers are generated by employing the predicted preferences so as to lead the negotiation to "win-win" outcomes (if applicable). The experimental results indicates the proposed approach can improve negotiants' profits and efficiency considerably. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.