Reverse Auction Bidding: Studying Player Behavior
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144, Issue 1
Abstract
Reverse auction bidding is a recent development in the auctioning of goods and services. Significant controversy exists within the construction industry as to whether reversed auction bidding is akin to bid shopping. This is a serious ethical question for the engineering and construction community and one that is worthy of research. First, in the simplest terms, the practical purpose of this paper is to outline the development of a simple web-based game that allows for a controlled study of reverse auction bidding with a standard cohort of trained construction-oriented players and to outline the statistical results of the different games played between 2004 and 2016. These studies provide the pragmatic and statistical framework within a very highly structured game to consider the truth of this paper’s hypothesis, which is that an economically efficient player exists in legal game play. In this paper, the legal game play must coincide with actual construction bidding methods and law. The hypothesis is shown to be true in this study of reverse auction bidding. An economically efficient bidder is someone wanted on a good bidding team; this simple game provides a quick and simple classification system and a good training tool. Second, the utility of the study, not as a bidding method in the real world, but as a training tool for bidding specialists is outlined and the statistical data shown to provide the definition for economically efficient players and nonefficient players is summarized and explained in terms of application to the real world and game theory. The ultimate objective is to create an artificially intelligent player who passes a Turing test for the game, and who maximizes the returns within the valid monetary and utility matrix models used by game players.
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Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author by request. Information about the Journal’s data sharing policy can be found here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CO.1943-7862.0001263.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the many people who have participated in a RAB game at TAMU since 2004 and to Rob van Vleet who developed the idea. All participation was voluntary and was undertaken in accordance with the TAMU Institutional Review Board approvals for every study. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained for the publication of this paper. Data are available from the author, although this is controlled and may be limited by Texas A&M University IRB’s requirements, depending on the data requested.
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Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 144 • Issue 1 • January 2018
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 20, 2016
Accepted: Jun 22, 2017
Published online: Nov 15, 2017
Published in print: Jan 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Apr 15, 2018
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