Even easier multi-issue negotiation through Modified Even-Swaps considering practically dominated alternatives

"Modified Even-Swaps" is a mechanism recently developed for multi-issue negotiation, which is highly complicated to realize and therefore more dependent to sophisticated information and communication technologies (ICTs) when compared to single-issue (price-only) negotiation. This mechanism is based on a modified version of Even-Swaps method finding differences among alternatives in terms of negotiable issues and then making use of those differences to assess value of multi-issue offers. A fuzzy-inference system supports this mechanism for bargaining on several issues simultaneously as well. Number of trade-offs performed significantly influences routines of the Modified Even-Swaps mechanism. In this study, a novel approach providing practical dominance reinforcement is introduced to accelerate the mechanism through eliminating unnecessary trade-offs. This approach proposes to use of "Simple Additive Weighting" (SAW) method in order to combine issues which have high variation among consequences of alternatives under consideration. As a result, these issues utilize a combined consequence for each alternative. Phase of the mechanism aiming to identify dominated alternatives is executed by using revised decision-matrix including consequences of issues having high variation as combined. This revision allows the mechanism to identify dominated alternatives more practically. Possible improvements are demonstrated and discussed with some cases in this study. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.