How Third Trusted Parties Can Support Negotiations in Multi-Agent Systems for Virtual Enterprises

In a Virtual Enterprise (VE), there are three main functions for an IT infrastructure: support VE formation, track and monitor the execution of customer orders, and support the problem management (delays, re-configurations, re-routings). Formation and problem management implies complex interaction, and one of the crucial aspects of these two functions is the ability of the agents to perform negotiations in conflicting situations. The structure of the VE IT system can be designed to support negotiation. Our working system, called PROVE, enables negotiations by using a Third Trusted Party, that is providing mediator agents, and keeps historical information about previous agent based interaction in the VE. The data kept centrally was designed around the trust concept. Because trust is rather a vague concept, we identified some measures for capturing trust. The one investigated in this paper is the “tendency for exaggeration” during negotiations.