Paper Title
DOC.COM: Combining Document And Communication Management For Negotiation Support In Business-To-Business Electronic Commerce

Abstract
Negotiation in traditional commerce is a complex commu-nication process. Research in negotiation support for elec-tronic commerce has focused on new negotiation protocols such as auctions. However, for peer-to-peer negotiations in business-to-business electronic commerce such protocols are inappropriate. In this paper we present a novel ap-proach to the effective support of electronic negotiations. Existing negotiation processes in traditional commerce are analysed to find out about negotiation patterns and to an-ticipate potential problems. Our aim is to exploit the poten-tial of information technology to overcome (most of) these problems for electronic negotiations. Electronic negotia-tions between business partners involve the exchanges of documents and messages. Documents are contracts which evolve during the negotiations. The evolution is coordinated through the exchange of structured messages such as of-fers, requests, quotations, counteroffers, and acceptances. In contrast to the current practice of separate management of messages and documents, we propose a powerful frame-work for effective negotiation support in electronic com-merce by combining communication and document man-agement.