Flexible negotiation agent with relaxed decision rules

The distinguishing feature of negotiation agents in this paper is that they are designed with the flexibility to make adjustable amounts of concession by reacting to changing market conditions, taking into account factors such as competition, deadlines, and trading options, and relaxing trading aspirations in face of (intense) negotiation pressure (e.g., stiff competition) using a set of fuzzy rules. Extensive amounts of stochastic simulations were conducted on a wide variety of test environments including dense, moderate, sparse, balanced, favorable, and unfavorable markets on stringent, as well as, relaxed constraints. Empirical results suggest that on average, when compared to Sim´s market-driven agents, agents in this research achieved higher success rates in reaching a deal, and higher expected utilities.