Developing e-Negotiation support with a meta-modeling approach in a Web services environment

Motivated by frequently repeated activities of negotiating similar sales contracts and inadequate studies of business-to-business (B2B) negotiation processes, we formulate a meta-model of e-Negotiation based on a practical meta-model for e-Contract template and template variables to allow flexible support for a variety of negotiation processes. Based on our meta-models, we develop an effective implementation framework with contemporary Web services technology. We illustrate our methodology with three typical kinds of sales e-Negotiation processes, namely, bargaining, auction, and request for proposals (RFPs). As a result, B2B, business-to-customer (B2C), or even customer-to-customer (C2C) negotiation can be systematically supported in a unified pragmatic framework for both human and programmatic access.