Auctions, Bidding and Exchange Design

The different auction types are outlined using a classification framework along six dimensions. The economic properties that are desired in the design of auction mechanisms and the complexities that arise in their implementation are discussed. Some of the most interesting designs from the literature are analyzed in detail to establish known results and to identify the emerging research directions.Engineering and Applied Science

Combinatorial auctions for electronic business

Combinatorial auctions (CAs) have recently generated significant interest as an automated mechanism for buying and selling bundles of goods. They are proving to be extremely useful in numerous e-business applications such as e-selling, e-procurement, e-logistics, and B2B exchanges. In this article, we introduce combinatorial auctions and bring out important issues in the design of combinatorial auctions. We also highlight important contributions in current research in this area. This survey emphasizes combinatorial auctions as applied to electronic business situations

Electronic negotiation support systems and their role in business communication : an exploratory evaluation of auction use

Electronic communication media and electronic commerce have become substantial components of economic interaction. Buyers and consumers are increasingly integrated in processes of product and service specification. More and more coordination processes are conducted digitally or partly automated. Buyer-supplier relationships change. In the post-hype phase regarding online-auctions long term relationships prevail ? however, the electronic communication via e-mail as well as the different types of reverse auction have been established as business processes. The dissertation contributes to an understanding of the appropriation and use processes of electronic procurement auctions, i.e. the only form of electronic negotiation with sufficient market-penetration for a field study. Consequently, it explicates the effects of the technology in its application context. The focus of the study is on an aspect, which is hardly suitable for experimental analysis: the identification and contextualisation of organisational communication effects. It shows how auction systems can generate efficiencies as well as relational threats and communicative barriers. The latter is mainly achvied through references to the theory of Habermas. Based on the field study, conclusions for the adequate design and choice of negotiation support technology are drawn.Elektronische Kommunikationsmedien und Electronic Commerce haben sich zu integralen Bestandteilen wirtschaftlichen Handelns entwickelt. Zudem sind Abnehmer oder Konsumenten in Lieferketten zunehmend in die Prozesse der Spezifikation von Produkten und Dienstleistungen eingebunden. Zunehmend werden auch Vereinbarungsprozesse digital abgewickelt oder gar im Rahmen von elektronischen Beschaffungsauktionen teilautomatisiert. Die Beziehungen von Lieferanten und Einkäufern entwickeln sich parallel dazu weiter. Auch nach dem Ende der euphorischen Phase in Bezug auf Online-Auktionen herrschen langfristig angelegte Kooperation vor - Gleichwohl hat die elektronische Kommunikation sowohl in Form der E-Mail als auch in Form verschiedener Varianten der Beschaffungsauktion Einzug in geschäftliche Verhandlungsabläufe gefunden. Die Dissertation trägt dazu bei, die Aneignungs- und Nutzungsprozesse elektronischer Beschaffungsauktionen, der einzigen E-Verhandlungsform mit ausreichender Verbreitung, zu erklären und im Anschluss daran die Effekte dieser Technologien im Anwendungskontext aufzuzeigen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt dabei auf einem Aspekt, der einer experimentellen Analyse schwer zugänglich, aber gleichwohl von großer Bedeutung ist: der Identifikation und Kontextualisierung von Effekten im Rahmen der organisationalen Kommunikation. Es wird aufgezeigt, wie Auktionssysteme Prozesseffizienzen generieren, aber auch Geschäftsbeziehungen gefährden und als Kommunikationsbarriere wirken können. Letzteres wird insbesondere durch Bezüge zum Kommunikationsmodell von Habermas erreicht. Die Arbeit liefert auf Basis einer Feldstudie eine Grundlage für die adäquate Gestaltung und die situationsbezogene Auswahl von Technologien

Coordination in Service Value Networks - A Mechanism Design Approach

The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism is multidimensional incentive compatible and implements an ex-post service level enforcement. Further extensions of the mechanism are evaluated following analytical and numerical research methods

Combinatorial auctions for electronic business

Combinatorial auctions (CAs) have recently generated significant interest as an automated mechanism for buying and selling bundles of goods. They are proving to be extremely useful in numerous e-business applications such as e-selling, e-procurement, e-logistics, and B2B exchanges. In this article, we introduce combinatorial auctions and bring out important issues in the design of combinatorial auctions. We also highlight important contributions in current research in this area. This survey emphasizes combinatorial auctions as applied to electronic business situations

Combinatorial Auction-based Mechanisms for Composite Web Service Selection

Composite service selection presents the opportunity for the rapid development of complex applications using existing web services. It refers to the problem of selecting a set of web services from a large pool of available candidates to logically compose them to achieve value-added composite services. The aim of service selection is to choose the best set of services based on the functional and non-functional (quality related) requirements of a composite service requester. The current service selection approaches mostly assume that web services are offered as single independent entities; there is no possibility for bundling. Moreover, the current research has mainly focused on solving the problem for a single composite service. There is a limited research to date on how the presence of multiple requests for composite services affects the performance of service selection approaches. Addressing these two aspects can significantly enhance the application of composite service selection approaches in the real-world. We develop new approaches for the composite web service selection problem by addressing both the bundling and multiple requests issues. In particular, we propose two mechanisms based on combinatorial auction models, where the provisioning of multiple services are auctioned simultaneously and service providers can bid to offer combinations of web services. We mapped these mechanisms to Integer Linear Programing models and conducted extensive simulations to evaluate them. The results of our experimentation show that bundling can lead to cost reductions compared to when services are offered independently. Moreover, the simultaneous consideration of a set of requests enhances the success rate of the mechanism in allocating services to requests. By considering all composite service requests at the same time, the mechanism achieves more homogenous prices which can be a determining factor for the service requester in choosing the best composite service selection mechanism to deploy

Improving Data Quality, Model Functionalities and Optimizing User Interfaces in Decision Support Systems

This dissertation contributes to the research on three core elements of decision support systems for managers and consumers: data management, model management and user interface. With respect to data management this dissertation proposes an approach for reducing unobserved product heterogeneity in online transaction data sets. The example of an online auction data set is used to investigate the approach’s ability to improve data quality. In the area of model management this dissertation contributes an approach to elicit consumer product preferences for exponential (beside linear) utility functions aiming at predicting consumers’ utilities and willingness-to-pay for individual products. The question which utility function (linear or exponential) is better suited for predicting product utilities and the willingness to pay is evaluated using a laboratory experiment. Further, in the area of user interfaces this dissertation deals with information visualization. Focusing on coordinate systems, a laboratory experiment is used to investigate which visualization format (two or three dimensional) is better suited for supporting simple vs. complex decision making scenarios and which criteria matter when choosing a visualization format for a particular level of decision making complexity

A theoretical and computational basis for CATNETS

The main content of this report is the identification and definition of market mechanisms for Application Layer Networks (ALNs). On basis of the structured Market Engineering process, the work comprises the identification of requirements which adequate market mechanisms for ALNs have to fulfill. Subsequently, two mechanisms for each, the centralized and the decentralized case are described in this document. These build the theoretical foundation for the work within the following two years of the CATNETS project. --Grid Computing

Mass Customization of Cloud Services - Engineering, Negotiation and Optimization

Several challenges hinder the entry of mass customization principles into Cloud computing: Firstly, the service engineering on provider side needs to be automated. Secondly, there has to be a suitable negotiation mechanism helping provider and consumer on finding an agreement on Quality-of-Service and price. Thirdly, finding the optimal configuration requires adequate and efficient optimization techniques. The work at hand addresses these challenges through technical and economic contributions

Coordination in Service Value Networks : A Mechanism Design Approach

The fundamental paradigm shift from traditional value chains to agile service value networks (SVN) implies new economic and organizational challenges. This work provides an auction-based coordination mechanism that enables the allocation and pricing of service compositions in SVNs. The mechanism is multidimensional incentive compatible and implements an ex-post service level enforcement. Further extensions of the mechanism are evaluated following analytical and numerical research methods