Complex and Concurrent Negotiations for Multiple Interrelated e-Markets

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.