Editorial

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This paper is an excerpt from a book by Gregory Kersten, which was not yet completed before his unexpected passing in May 2020. Following a note from Gregory’s family, the paper includes a section of a book chapter dealing with negotiation protocols. It shows how negotiation, as a purposeful process governed by explicit and implicit rules has protocols that can be employed to help negotiators orient themselves in this process. In particular, with respect to e-negotiations, the paper stresses the need to have a shared and clear understanding of the terms that are used by negotiators and software, which should be provided by taxonomy or ontology. The paper distinguishes three principal aspects of negotiations: decision and choice; language; and process. It also identifies key challenges related to the successful implementation of negotiation software agents.
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E-negotiation design and engineering

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Inspired and led by Dr. Gregory E. Kersten, a number of research projects have been conducted at the InterNeg Research Centre. This paper intends to acknowledge Dr. Kersten’s unique role as a pioneer in e-negotiation research, particularly in exploring and integrating various elements in e-negotiations. From the design science research perspective, this paper reviews a series of relevant research works in e-negotiation modeling, system design and development, and experimental studies. This provides an integrative view of interconnected elements in this field, and also helps framing the various studies into different aspects and stages of e-negotiation research. The paper then suggests several guidelines and directions for future design science research in e-negotiations.
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Design science research approach in studying e-negotiations: models, systems, experiments

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Negotiation is a joint decision making process involving making concessions by the parties. Concession-making may involve giving up negotiator’s utility and is an essential activity in the negotiation process. In the past it has been suggested by some authors that negotiators utility functions over the issues may not be linear. In this case, a phenomenon called “concession crossover” takes place, in which a negotiator may switch issues on which they choose to make concessions at some point in negotiations. This work sets to investigate the validity of such claims. To this end we introduce several concession-making models and use them for testing hypotheses. We have used a dataset from online negotiation experiments featuring a contract-signing case. The results support the claim that concession crossover does indeed occur.
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Concession crossover in electronic negotiations

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Preferential information may be visualized in many different ways, and this constitutes an important issue in the principal-agent decision-making context, e.g., in representative negotiations. In the INSPIRE negotiation support system, the principal’s preferences are visualized by circles with different radii. Agents evaluate the principal’s preferences in such a manner that they digitize these preferences using numbers directly proportional to the size of the circles, drawn by the principal. The manner, in which an agent understands the concept of the circle size is unknown. The main goal of this paper is to propose such an image of principal’s preferences, which is independent of an individual agent’s evaluation. Individual negotiators may differ in their understanding of this concept. This means that the notion of “circle size” is a linguistic variable that may be described by a fuzzy set. The empirical studies referred to show that the size of the circle is a value between the radius and the area of this circle. In this paper, the principal’s preferences are defined as a fuzzy preorder between fuzzy “circle sizes”. We distinguish here two kinds of the INSPIRE method. All considerations are illustrated by means of a short case study based on INSPIRE data.
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A fuzzy ranking of negotiation packages for the INSPIRE negotiation support system

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In a negotiation process, knowing the preferences of the decision-maker and building a negotiation offer scoring system are very challenging tasks. There are many different methods that can be used to develop such a negotiation support tool, including, but not limited to, techniques based on the multiattribute utility theory (MAUT) or the outranking relation, for instance SAW, AHP or PROMETHEE II. In this paper we present the procedure of evaluating the negotiation template using an unconventional and inventive method called SIPRES, which combines the key elements of the revised Simos’ procedure and the ZAPROS method to elicit the negotiator’s preferences over some reference solutions. This transparent and easy to implement technique – thanks to the ZAPROS-like approach applied within it – allows the decision-makers to define their preferences in a simple manner, providing an effective method for analysing the trade-offs between the alternatives using selected reference alternatives only. Simultaneously, the revised Simos’ procedure, applied in the method, allows for determining the cardinal scores of the alternatives. Thus, sophisticated negotiation analyses can be carried out. As an illustrative example the problem of basketball contract negotiations is discussed.
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Basketball contract: applying the SIPRES method in the process of evaluating the negotiation template

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This paper presents a practical case involving a shopping mall location problem in the northeast countryside of Brazil. In this problem, conflicting objectives have been expressed in terms of seven criteria. Then, ten cities of the northeastern countryside have been selected to compose the space of actions. The problem plays a special role since Brazil is a big country that requires investments in the countryside. Thus, the shopping mall aims to stimulate economic growth in the respective region. In the study, this multi-objective problem is solved using the FITradeoff method. In FITradeoff, the combination of the paradigms of holistic evaluation and elicitation by decomposition in preference modeling are well explored, bringing different perspectives for the decision-maker during the decision process.
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Using the FITradeoff method to solve a shopping mall location problem in the northeastern countryside of Brazil

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The text attempts to provide a comprehensive outlook on negotiation processes and support procedures, by deriving a mathematical description based on psychological and managerial context. The authors merge psychological and formal descriptions of the principles underlying the perception of rationality in negotiation problems. The framework allows for explaining the violation of perceived rationality as a result of the deprivation of human needs. The argument, supported by pilot experiments, allows for recommending a procedural approach to negotiation, focused on monitoring perceptions of rationality of proposal submission. The paper is concluded with an attempt to foresight further developments of theoretical investigations and expansion of application fields.
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Towards assisted rationality switching in negotiations

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The Negotiation Support Systems often implement multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA) techniques for building a negotiation scoring system. Those formal models should meet the needs, motivations, expectations, and cognitive abilities of users. In this paper, we try to explore the effects of decision maker’s subjective perception of ease of use, time requirements, interface, preference representation, and efficiency of a particular MCDA method on the choice regarding the future use of this method. The multinomial logistic regression model is built and analysed. The analysis is based on data from online decision making experiments, where three MCDA methods were implemented, i.e. AHP, SMART, and TOPSIS. The study provides several interesting findings, concerning the behavioural aspects of multiple criteria decision aiding in software support systems. Most of the users recommended TOPSIS as the best one for supporting decisions in the future. This is a fast technique, for which we used an attractive graphical interface, suggesting that these factors play a crucial role in the users’ choices. However, the causative regression model showed that the user’s positive experience in using a particular method, i.e. its effectiveness in solving an exemplary numerical case, has the highest impact on the method’s choice for future use. The second most important factor is the adequacy in representing the user’s preferences by this method. We show, however, that the strengths of effects and their significance may vary across the methods. Understanding the decision maker’s evaluations of the MCDA techniques may help build a cognitive negotiation support system that satisfies the user’s expectations.
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Towards cognitive decision support: A model of behavioural assessment of multi-criteria methods

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A decision-making process is considered for a firm, in which two coexisting groups of interests pursue different goals. An original model based on a non-neoclassical production function is proposed. The function satisfies the conditions formulated by R. Frisch, which makes it possible to investigate firms operating in the environment far from the perfect competition and pursuing goals other than profit maximization. A two-criteria optimization problem is formulated with the two criteria representing the goals of the groups: maximization of profit and maximization of income generated by the firm with respect to capital and labor. The problem is considered in two variants of the product market, namely the perfect and the imperfect competition. Solutions of the problem are analyzed including the derived Pareto sets. The importance of knowledge about the Pareto set in negotiations between the groups of interests in the firm is illustrated and discussed.
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Objectives of an enterprise. Bi-criteria analysis and negotiation problems

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This research deals with a phenomenon well-known in socio-economic studies and referred to as the Agency Theory: the principal-agent problem. The agent is designated to act on behalf of the company owner, i.e., the principal, in the domain of supply chain management in the face of a supplier’s default uncertainty. Each of the players is gain-oriented, but their objective functions and the degree of risk-bearing may significantly differ, leading to an agent’s decisions not being optimal in terms of the principal’s outcome. This article proposes a multi-period supply chain simulation model that can be used to perform a supply chain optimization and comparison between the agent and the principal. The proposed framework allows for differentiating the model parametrization depending on the industry, in particular the consequences of the inability to deliver the end product, costs of keeping safety stocks, or the uncertainty regarding the suppliers’ delivery failure. As players’ objective functions, we consider expected profit-based indicators and measures taking the inter-period variance into account. We find that the agent’s actions may diverge from the principal’s optimum if the agent’s incentive system is not selected correctly. We also propose a solution that unifies the goals of the players. The recent COVID-19 pandemic amplifies the importance of such research. Many companies had to limit production capacities due to global lockdowns and, per the JIT production strategy, the prior safety stock levels were low.
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The principal-agent problem in supply chain management – the simulation based framework

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Volume 52 (2023): Issue 2 (June 2023)

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Volume 50 (2021): Issue 4 (December 2021)

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Volume 50 (2021): Issue 1 (March 2021) Special Issue Dedicated to the memory of Gregory E. Kersten Guest Edited by Tomasz Wachowicz, Ewa Roszkowska and Bogumił Kamiński

Control and Cybernetics

 This journal is edited and published by the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.  eISSN: 2720-4278 ISSN: 0324-8569   Its main objective is to stimulate the development of broadly conceived systems theory and analysis.  The field of interest covers general concepts, theories, methods, and techniques associated with analysis, modelling, control and management in various systems (e.g., technological, economic, ecological, social).  The journal is particularly interested in results in the following areas of research:  Systems and control theory   General systems theory  Optimal control  Optimization theory  Optimization algorithms  Decomposition and coordination methods  Structural optimization  Data analysis and learning  Artificial intelligence  Machine learning  Modeling and identification  Game theory and polioptimization  Decision and negotiation systems  Stochastic and fuzzy systems  Systems control and management   Systems analysis of national and regional development  Modelling and control of complex systems (in energy, water, industry, agriculture)  Applications of operations research methods  Computer aided management, control and optimal design  Methodological aspects of applications of control and systems methods  The Quarterly journal CONTROL AND CYBERNETICS is being indexed and abstracted in a number of worldwide services (Scopus and Index Copernicus, etc.). Its current issues can be obtained from the Publisher, or via EBSCO and GALE, while issues older than one year are freely available on the web.  Reviews of individual papers from the journal appear in International Abstracts in Operations Research, Mathematical Reviews, and Zentralblatt für Mathematik.  Abstracted in Applied Mechanical Reviews. Indexed also by Polish services BazTech and BazEkon.  See the website control.ibspan.waw.pl.  We hope that Control and Cybernetics will contribute to the development of systems and control sciences and will stimulate and encourage application of systems approach in different areas.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 

Volume 50 (2021): Issue 1 (March 2021) - Special Issue Dedicated to the memory of Gregory E. Kersten Guest Edited by Tomasz Wachowicz, Ewa Roszkowska and Bogumił Kamiński