A Study on Preference Impartation and Decision Support in E-Negotiation

Decision support and the impartation of the principal's preferences to the agent may influence the negotiation outcome. A multi-attribute two-party contract e-negotiation was conducted in a controlled laboratory environment. The results indicate that the effectiveness of analytical support depends on the elicitation of the numerical preference values. When preference information is transmitted in qualitative terms to the negotiation agents, analytical support may be counterproductive.