Satisfiability and completeness of protocols for electronic negotiations

Many of the existing e-negotiation support systems are build around one negotiation protocol. This effectively restricts their use to those problems and interactions that had been assumed a priori by the systems’ designers. Field and experimental studies show that the way the negotiation process is structured depends on the negotiators’ characteristics, the problem and the context in which an agreement is sought. It also has been recognized in literature that the way a problem is represented and the solution process implemented both strongly influence the results at which individual decisionmakers and negotiators arrive. This article presents elements of a theory for the design of negotiation protocols. The proposed protocol formalism allows for the construction of models from which users can select a protocol instance that suits them and/or is appropriate for the problem at-hand. Furthermore, this formalism allows for the construction of protocols that can be modified during the user-system interactions. The paper also presents two key requirements for negotiation protocols embedded in support systems, namely their satisfiability and completeness.