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Representing the negotiation process with a rule-based formalism

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to introduce a flexible approach to the structuring of negotiations. The process of negotiations with its intricacies is discussed, and drawbacks of quantitative methods are analyzed. The decomposition of the negotiation process into a certain hierarchical structure is presented. This structure is represented with ‘and/or’ trees used for knowledge representation in artificial intelligence. The definitions of flexibility and reactions to the opponent's moves are introduced with the help of a rule-based formalism. The implications of these definitions for the analysis of the negotiation process are presented. The approach is illustrated with a set of hypothetical examples.

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Kersten, G.E., Michalowski, W., Matwin, S. et al. Representing the negotiation process with a rule-based formalism. Theor Decis 25, 225–257 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133164

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