Complex and Concurrent Negotiations for Multiple Interrelated e-Markets

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To date, most of the existing bargaining models are

designed for supporting negotiation in only one market involving

only two types of participants (buyers and sellers). This work

devises a complex negotiation mechanism that supports negotiation

activities among three types of participants in multiple interrelated

markets. The complex negotiation mechanism consists

of: 1) a bargaining-position-estimation (BPE) strategy for the

multilateral negotiations between consumer and broker agents in

a service market and 2) a regression-based coordination (RBC)

strategy for concurrent negotiations between broker and provider

agents in multiple resource markets. The negotiation outcomes

between broker and provider agents in a resource market can

potentially influence the negotiation outcomes between broker and

consumer agents in a service market. Empirical results show that

agents adopting the BPE strategy can better respond to different

market conditions than agents adopting the time-dependent

strategy because they do not make excessive (respectively,

inadequate) amounts of concessions in favorable (respectively,

unfavorable) markets. In the concurrent negotiations in multiple

resource markets, empirical results show that broker agents

adopting the RBC strategy achieved significantly higher utilities,

higher success rates, and faster negotiation speed than broker

agents adopting the utility-oriented and patient coordination

strategies.