Table Of ContentModels for Intercultural Collaboration
and Negotiation
Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation
Volume6
SeriesEditor
MelvinF.Shakun,NewYorkUniversity,U.S.A.
EditorialBoard
TungBui,UniversityofHawaii,U.S.A.
GuyOlivierFaure,UniversityofParisV,Sorbonne,France
GregoryKersten,UniversityofOttawaandConcordiaUniversity,Canada
D.MarcKilgour,WilfridLaurierUniversity,Canada
PeymanFaratin,MassachusettsInstituteofTechnology,U.S.A.
Thebookseries,AdvancesinGroupDecisionandNegotiation—asanextensionof
thejournal,GroupDecisionandNegotiation—ismotivatedbyunifyingapproaches
to group decision and negotiation processes. These processes are purposeful,
adaptive and complex – cybernetic and self-organizing – and involve relation
and coordination in multiplayer, multicriteria, ill-structured, evolving dynamic
problems in which players (agents) both cooperate and conflict. These processes
arepurposefulcomplexadaptivesystems.
Group decision and negotiation involves the whole process or flow of activities
relevant to group decision and negotiation – such as, communication and
informationsharing, problemdefinition (representation)and evolution,alternative
generation,socialemotionalinteraction,coordination,leadership,andtheresulting
actionchoice.
Areas of application include intraorganizational coordination (as in local/global
strategy, operations management and integrated design, production, finance,
marketing and distribution – e.g., as for new products), computer supported
collaborativework, labor-managementnegotiation,interorganizationalnegotiation
(business, government and nonprofits), electronic negotiation and commerce,
mobiletechnology,cultureandnegotiation,interculturalandinternationalrelations
andnegotiation,globalization,terrorism,environmentalnegotiation,etc.
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/5587
Katia Sycara (cid:129) Michele Gelfand (cid:129) Allison Abbe
Editors
Models for Intercultural
Collaboration and
Negotiation
123
Editors
KatiaSycara MicheleGelfand
SchoolofComputerScience DepartmentofPsychology
CarnegieMellonUniversity UniversityofMaryland
PittsburghPennsylvania CollegeParkMaryland
USA USA
AllisonAbbe
U.S.ArmyResearchInstitute
fortheBehavioral&SocialSciences
ArlingtonVirginia
USA
ISSN1871-935X
ISBN978-94-007-5573-4 ISBN978-94-007-5574-1(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-94-007-5574-1
SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergNewYorkLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013930171
©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2013
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof
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Foreword
Over the last five decades the corporate world has increasingly seen the value
in expanding their reach across international borders. Organizationshave worked
to enter new markets overseas, gain access to cheaper labor pools, and take
advantage of potential synergies and new ideas through merging with similar
organizations in other nations. In doing so, they have encountered, and worked
to solve, the variety of problems that stem from interacting and working across
national and cultural boundaries. In the last decade, the military community has
similarly encountered and begun work to solve many of these problems. In 2008
the Department of the Army requested that a consortium of universities led by
Dr.MicheleGelfandattheUniversityofMarylandandDr.KatiaSycaraatCarnegie
MellonUniversity,undertakealineofresearchexaminingcriticalsocialprocesses
across cultural boundaries. This research has focused on understanding collab-
oration and negotiation in cross-cultural contexts. The consortium is composed
of two research teams led respectively by Drs. Gelfand and Sycara, with each
team approachingthese researchproblemsfromtwo complementaryperspectives.
One team has begun from a psychological perspective building grounded theory
to explain observed behavior in negotiation and collaboration activity. A separate
teamhasworkedfromacomputationalmodelingperspectivetomodeltheobserved
computationally and thus inform theory on negotiation and collaboration. These
complementaryapproaches,combiningapsychologically-groundedapproachwith
computationalmodeling,holdgreatpromiseformakingsignificantstridesforward
inourunderstandingofthesecriticalsocialprocessesincross-culturalcontexts.
As the reader makes their way through this volume, they will note the tension
betweenthereductionismnecessaryforcomputationalmodelstocapturebehavior
with some measure of accuracy and the contextualization necessary for fully
understandingbehaviorintherealworld.Balancingthistensionisbothintentional
in the design of the research effort and necessary to achieving the knowledge
desired.Theresearchteamsrepresentedinthesechaptershaveprovidedanexcellent
exampleofhowthesetwofieldscancooperatively–indeedcollaboratively–work
togethertoachievemorethaneithercouldinisolation.
v
vi Foreword
Unlikesomevolumeswhichhaveaninherentlyretrospectivetone,theintentof
this book is to capture and convey the surge forward in thinking in this domain
and push our collective understandingforward. The editors and authors articulate
the new insights they have gained through this research enterprise and explore
newchallengestheyhave uncoveredalongthe way.Thisresearcheffortis notyet
complete,andthusthediscussioncontainedhereisbutausefulpausetoreflectand
reportthe knowledgegainedto date.Itis also a pointofdepartureforempirically
exploring the immediate questions raised. Further these ideas and questions may
inspire the many post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students to
continuethislineofinquiryinthefuture.
Thistypeofmultidisciplinaryeffortholdspromise,andindeedmaybenecessary,
asthemostimportantscientificquestionsfacingthebehavioralsciencesmoreoften
arefoundattheboundariesbetweenscientificdisciplines.Itisinthischallenging,
oftenmessyenvironmentthatsomeofthemostsignificantscientificachievements
ofourtimewillbemade.Assuch,theeditorsandauthors–theprincipalresearchers
undertakingthis effort– are to be congratulatedfor their willingnessto undertake
suchaneffortandpersistenceinhandlingthemanychallengestheyhavefacedalong
theway.Multidisciplinaryresearchisnoteasy.However,whenexecutedwell,asit
hasbeenhere,itcanbeextraordinarilyproductive.
ChiefofBasicResearch GeraldF.Goodwin
U.S.ArmyResearchInstitute
Contents
AFormalDefinitionofCulture................................................. 1
Aliaksandr Birukou, Enrico Blanzieri, Paolo Giorgini,
andFaustoGiunchiglia
TowardaContextualizedCulturalFramework .............................. 27
MaritzaR.Salazar, MarissaL.Shuffler, WendyL.Bedwell,
andEduardoSalas
Toward a Unified NegotiationFramework: Leveraging
StrengthsinBehavioralandComputationalCommunities ................. 53
NazliTuran,TinglongDai,KatiaSycara,andLaurieWeingart
AModelofCultureinTradingAgents ........................................ 67
GertJanHofstede,CatholijnM.Jonker,andTimVerwaart
HowDoITrust Thee?DynamicTrust PatternsandTheir
IndividualandSocialContextualDeterminants.............................. 97
C.AshleyFulmerandMicheleJ.Gelfand
NegotiatingCulturalConflictsOverSacredValues.......................... 133
KateJassin, HammadSheikh, NadineObeid, NicholeArgo,
andJeremyGinges
StudyingTrajectoriesofConflictEscalation.................................. 145
LanBui-Wrzosinska, MicheleGelfand, AndrzejNowak,
andLauraSeverance
AGame-TheoreticApproachtoModelingCross-CulturalNegotiation... 157
MiroslavDud´ıkandGeoffreyJ.Gordon
vii
viii Contents
Inter-culturalOpponent BehaviorModeling inaPOMDP
basedAutomatedNegotiatingAgent........................................... 165
Praveen Paruchuri, Nilanjan Chakraborty,Geoff Gordon,
KatiaSycara,JeanneBrett,andWendiAdair
ModelingDynamicsofMulticulturalIntegrationandConflict............. 183
WouterE.deRaad,AndrzejNowak,andWojciechBorkowski
Index............................................................................... 199
A Formal Definition of Culture
AliaksandrBirukou,EnricoBlanzieri,PaoloGiorgini,andFaustoGiunchiglia
Abstract Globalization makes culture no more bound to a geographical area,
race or religion as was previouslyconsideredin anthropology.With the adventof
Web 2.0 it becomesappropriateto speak aboutthe culture of online communities
in general, without specific ties to country or nation. Multi-national companies,
softwaredevelopers,scientists needto take intoaccountculturaldifferenceswhen
delivering products to people. The first step in dealing with culture consists in
definingandrepresentingcultureofthetargetedcommunity.AIliteratureaddressed
issues of sociality, collaboration, and coordination in agent societies, but did not
targettheproblemofdefiningandrepresentingcultureofacommunity.
This chapter presents a formal definition of culture of a set of agents. The
proposeddefinition generalizesexisting definitionsof cultureand it is operational
inthesensethatitcanbeappliedforcharacterizationandcomparisonofculture(s)
existing in various communities. The main focus of this chapter is on the first
version of the formalism that does not introduce states. However, representing a
snapshotofthecultureinacertainmomentisthefirststeptowardsamorecomplex
formalismthatincludesstates(theworkonthelatterisongoingandwepresentonly
preliminarydefinitionshere).
Keywords Culture (cid:129) Formal definition (cid:129) Agents (cid:129) Communities (cid:129) Web 2.0 (cid:129)
Traits (cid:129) Actions (cid:129) Artificialintelligence
A.Birukou(cid:129)E.Blanzieri((cid:2))(cid:129)P.Giorgini(cid:129)F.Giunchiglia
DISI,UniversityofTrento,viaSommarive14,Povo,Trento,TN38123,Italy
e-mail:[email protected];[email protected];[email protected];
[email protected]
K.Sycaraetal.(eds.),ModelsforInterculturalCollaborationandNegotiation, 1
AdvancesinGroupDecisionandNegotiation6,DOI10.1007/978-94-007-5574-1 1,
©SpringerScienceCBusinessMediaDordrecht2013
2 A.Birukouetal.
1 Introduction
TheadventofWeb2.0leadtoanexplosivegrowthinthenumberofapplicationstar-
getedat communities,e.g. applicationssupportingsocial navigation,collaborative
editing,bookmarkingandtagging.Insuchapplications,cultureisnomoreboundto
ageographicalareaorareligion,asitisusuallystudiedinanthropology.Itbecomes
appropriatetospeakaboutthecultureofonlinecommunitiesandsuchcommunities
ingeneralcannotbecharacterizedintermsofrace,religion,orcountry.Rephrasing
Axelrod(1997),electroniccommunicationsallowsustodeveloppatternsofinter-
actionthatarechosenratherthanimposedbygeography.Specificapplicationssuch
as search enginesor e-bookshopsand the ways of using them become part of the
cultureofpeople.Forinstance,usingNortonCommanderfilemanagerorpreparing
documents in the MS DOS 6.0 operating system, nowadays would be considered
unusualtothesameextentaslightingone’shousewithtorches.Moreover,insome
scenarioswecanspeakaboutsocietiesofpureartificialagents,suchaswebservices
or programs and their specific culture, e.g. the standards implemented or the set
of functionalities used. Human traders and trading agents operating on the same
markets together use the same rules and developcommon practices which can be
referredto asculturethatexistsin amixedsocietycomposedofdifferenttypesof
agents.Allthisshowsthatgraspingandrepresentingculturebecomesanimportant
problemin computerscience. Applicationsshould be developedconsistently with
thecultureofthetargetcommunityandthenotionofculturewouldprovidesupport
forbuildingsuchapplications.
In this chapter we provide a formal definition of culture. Our goal is not to
provide a formalism or a reasoning framework per se, but, rather, to give an
operationaldefinitionofculturethatcanbeusedforcharacterizinganddescribing
cultureindifferentscenarios.Inparticular,weaddresstheproblemsofdevelopment
of applications according to the community culture and of characterizing culture
of existing communities. We present and formalize a definition of the notion of
culture of a set of agents at a momentin time. We define culture as a set of traits
that are shared by the set, where traits are characteristics of human societies that
are potentially transmitted by non-genetic means and can be owned by an agent
(modified from Mulder, Nunn, & Towner, 2006). The requirement of traits being
potentiallytransmittedisneededbecausetransmissionisawayofspreadingtraits,
and, consequently,culture, and withouttransmission it is hard to achieve sharing.
Thesharingofsuchtraitsbythesetisrequiredfortworeasons:(1)togofromthe
setof personaltraits ofan individualto thecultureof the setof agents,and(2)to
filteroutcharacteristicswhichonlypertaintothesetofagentsasawhole,butnot
toindividuals.Anexampleoflattertraitsisbirthrate.
This chapter consolidates and slightly updates the work previously published
as a technical report (Birukou, Blanzieri, Giorgini, & Giunchiglia, 2009a) and a
workshoppaper(Birukou,Blanzieri, Giorgini,& Giunchiglia,2009b).We start in
Sect. 2with the reviewoftheuse of conceptofculturein theliterature.Section3
presentsthefirstversionoftheformalismthatdoesnotintroducestatesanddoesnot
