The Role of Cause Involvement and Assortment Size on Decision Difficulty via Communal Relationships

Social enterprises aim to achieve both social and economic goals by reaching broader consumer segments through extensive assortments, but research into how this product proliferation strategy affects consumer response is scarce. In the current research we examine how consumers judge social enterprises providing large product assortments. Three experiments show that choice overload (i.e., having a decision difficulty when faced with many options) can be reversed among target consumers of social enterprises—specifically those whose involvement in a social cause is high. Because more-involved consumers view large assortments of cause-related products as an indicator of the company’s commitment to addressing social issues, they identify with the company and thereby form communal relationships. Thus, the consumers’ focus shifts from comparing options to helping the company, leading to reduced decision difficulty. The findings contribute to existing research on assortment size and the understanding of the information consumers use to evaluate the company’s commitment to social causes.