This paper takes the first steps towards a generic theory of strategy in
negotiation interactions between autonomous computational agents. Pre-
vious efforts at defining and studying negotiation strategies have done so
within the context of a particular interaction protocol, or class of proto-
cols. In order to develop a protocol-independent theory of strategy, we
first identify the factors which may influence the creation of a strategy
for a rational agent, and then consider some of these in more detail. As
an example, we apply our generic approach to the Zeuthen strategy of
the Monotonic Concession Protocol and a particular strategy from the
International Trading Agent Competition.
