@inproceedings {5035, title = {An Agent Model of Business Relationships}, booktitle={International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications DEXA 2010}, volume = {6262}, year = {2010}, month = {30/08/2010}, pages = {126-140}, publisher = {Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, address = {Bilbao}, abstract = {Relationships are fundamental to all but the most impersonal forms of interaction in business. An agent aims to secure projected needs by attempting to build a set of (business) relationships with other agents. A relationship is built by exchanging private information, and is characterised by its intimacy \textemdash{} degree of closeness \textemdash{} and balance \textemdash{} degree of fairness. Each argumentative interaction between two agents then has two goals: to satisfy some immediate need, and to do so in a way that develops the relationship in a desired direction. An agent{\textquoteright}s desire to develop each relationship in a particular way then places constraints on the argumentative utterances. This paper describes argumentative interaction constrained by a desire to develop such relationships.}, isbn = {978-3-642-15250-4}, author = {John Debenham and Carles Sierra} }