An Opponent's Negotiation Behavior Model to Facilitate Buyer-seller Negotiations in Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Buyer-seller negotiation is an interactive process so that the outcome is not only determined by an agentpsilas own tactics but also influenced by his opponentpsilas choices. Therefore, retrieving the knowledge of the opponent to simulate the opponentpsilas possible actions can increase the payoffs. An ANN_based Opponentpsilas negotiation behavior model (OpNBM) is proposed. It consists of two basic negotiation behaviors: Bid_Evaluation simulates the negotiatorpsilas utility function, and Bid_Generation simulates the concession strategy. Furthermore, by observing the changes of the opponent during the actual bargaining process, the agent keeps adjusting the OpNBM with increase of the negotiation rounds. Several experiments have shown that the OpNBM can help agents to better prepare for the negotiation and achieve a better outcome.