Multi-attribute negotiation in e-business process composition

Structured collaboration between distributed enterprises is described by an interorganisational e-business process (e-process). An e-process typically comprises a core process hosted by one organization and many plug-in process components contracted from others. The assembly of an e-process would then involve nontrivial interorganisational negotiation of formal component procurement contracts. Human decision-making is required to provide the inherently subjective judgements when choosing component suppliers and negotiating these contracts. We introduce an approach to such e-business process negotiation, using a generic iterative bargaining protocol and a multicriteria decision-support method. An assessment of its feasibility is provided vis-a-vis a standard case study.