Collective memory support in negotiation: a theoretical framework

Negotiation analysis is complex. It may involve multiple issues of dispute, rules of negotiation, negotiators´ strategies, interventions by third party, negotiators´ cognitions, beliefs, preferences and attitude towards risks. Negotiators may have limited attention, limited capacity to store and retrieve memory information and limited capacity to process information. As a result they rely on heuristics or schemas and fail to generate optimal outcomes in negotiation. An approach to overcome cognitive limitation in negotiation is to provide additional support to store and retrieve memory information. This paper reiterates the conceptual framework of a computer supported negotiation memory support system (NMSS) and proposes a theoretical model of the influence of NMSS on negotiation outcome.