## 3 Hypotheses  
This review of prior research clearly shows a gap in the existing research into RAs. Compared to the consumers' perceptions, usage behavior, and decision quality toward RAs in an online context, the employees' perceptions, usage behavior, and decision quality toward RAs in an organizational context has not been studied in depth. Building upon the preceding literature review that mostly characterized the user as a consumer, we postulate that the perceptions, usage behavior, and decision quality of a consumer and an employee should align even though their RA adoption process differs. Hence, the way recommendations are presented should influence, similarly to a consumer, the perceptions, usage behavior, and decision quality of an assortment planner. In order to create an optimal assortment of products, assortment planners must maximize their cognitive effort invested [4; 5]. However, past research has shown that decision makers want to maximize the accuracy of their decisions and minimize their cognitive effort invested [28]. Therefore, by considering the recommendations of an AI-based RA throughout their decision-making process, assortment planners could diminish their cognitive effort invested and maximize their decision accuracy [46]. Unfortunately, without understanding the logical reasoning behind these recommendations, assortment planners should dismiss these suggestions [11; 13]. A transparent RA is then crucial for assortment planners to justify their assortment decisions to their superiors [12]. Due to the cognitive effort needed by the assortment planners to access and understand the explanations of a transparent RA, the accuracy of their decisions could be diminished [9]. Hence, a transparent RA demanding less cognitive effort seems to be the most suitable balance between transparency and cognitive effort. Thus, we postulate that a transparent RA demanding less cognitive effort to access and understand its explanations (i.e., a transparent RA together with low cognitive effort) will have a greater positive influence on assortment planners' perception regarding source credibility [8; 24], control [15], decision quality [13; 35], and satisfaction [18; 23; 35; 39] than other RAs (i.e., a non-transparent RA together with low cognitive effort and a transparent RA together with high cognitive effort). We thus formulate the following hypothesis. **H1. ** A transparent RA demanding low cognitive effort will have a greater positive impact on assortment planners' perception towards the RA's credibility (H1a), their perceived sense of control (H1b), their decision quality (H1c), and their satisfaction regarding the RA (H1d) than other RAs. In addition, we suggest, based on the review of the literature, that a transparent RA together with low cognitive effort will have a greater positive influence on assortment planners' objective decision quality than other RAs (i.e., a non-transparent RA together with low cognitive effort and a transparent RA together with high cognitive effort) ([PERSON], 2001) [35]. We thus postulate the following hypothesis. **H2. ** A transparent RA demanding low cognitive effort will have a greater positive impact on assortment planners' decision quality than other RAs. Furthermore, based on [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2004) [17], [PERSON] et al. (2012) [46], and [PERSON] and [PERSON] (2013) [47], we postulate that assortment planners, throughout their decision-making process,will consult more frequently the recommendations of a transparent RA demanding more cognitive effort to access and understand its explanations (i.e., a transparent RA together with high cognitive effort) compared to other RAs (i.e., a non-transparent RA together with low cognitive effort and a transparent RA together with low cognitive effort). We therefore postulate the following hypothesis. **H3. ** Assortment planners will consult more frequently throughout their decision-making process the recommendations of a transparent RA coupled with high cognitive effort compared to other RAs.