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Project 5: Labour/Management E-Negotiation Simulations

Team

Coordinators:  

E. Thiessen, ICAN Systems Inc.; A. Soberg, Trinity Western University
     
Key researchers:  

T. Bui, University of Hawaii Manoa; S. Koszegi, University of Vienna; G. Kersten, University of Ottawa; H. Lai, National Sun Yat-sen University; M. Schoop, RWTH; R. Vetschera, University of Vienna; Y. Yuan, McMaster University

Summary

The objective of this activity is to study the potential impact of electronic negotiation systems (ENSs) on the process and the outcomes of union-management negotiations. One of the variables we will study is the degree of decision support provided by the ENSs. To fulfill this requirement we have selected three ENSs for the experiments, SmartSettle (with decision support), Inspire (with decision support), and WebNS (without decision support).

The project will also study the effects of negotiator’s characteristics (e.g., power, education, gender, and approach to problem solving) on the negotiated outcomes when using ENSs. Data for this project will be gathered by using the selected ENSs in each of the following threee union-management negotiation settings:

  1. Simulations using university students participating in classroom settings.
  2. Simulations using members of unions and management teams.
  3. Real-life cases using members of union and management teams.

Key activities:

  1. Creation of a data base of union management teams and the contract information; development of marketing materials; setting up appointments.
  2. Development of a scorable case with variable preference parameters that could be used in experiments with at least two ENSs.
  3. Development of virtual training materials and pedagogy.
  4. Development of e-negotiation manual for labour-management negotiators; testing of manual.
  5. Negotiation simulations with student teams using three negotiation systems.
  6. Student team simulation data analysis.
  7. Negotiation simulations with labour-management teams.
  8. Labour-management team simulation data analysis.

 


January 13, 2004