orgsci-tables-figures

Tables, Figures & Exhibits (orgsci-tables-figures)

When to trigger

• Your exhibits are cluttered, off house style, or not self-explanatory
• A reviewer cannot follow your qualitative data structure or process model
• Your regression tables omit information readers need to evaluate the claim
• A simulation or network figure does not communicate the mechanism

House-style basics (INFORMS)

• Number tables and figures consecutively with self-explanatory titles and notes — each exhibit should be legible without the running text.
• Use author-date references in notes and captions (e.g., Norman 1977), consistent with the INFORMS author-date style.
• Keep fonts to the Garamond/Times-New-Roman family the journal specifies; avoid Helvetica Narrow. Minimize footnotes.
• Remember the all-inclusive ~50-page norm: exhibits count toward length. Heavy supplementary tables belong in the separate anonymized appendix that is submitted standalone for review and later posted as online supplementary material.

Exhibits by method (the journal is eclectic — build what your design needs)

• Qualitative / inductive. A Gioia-style data structure (first-order codes → second-order themes → aggregate dimensions), a process model diagram, and a representative-quotation table keyed to themes — often the paper's centerpiece, carrying the analysis's trustworthiness.
• Quantitative. A descriptives/correlation table (reliabilities on the diagonal), nested regression tables that build the model, and interaction plots with simple slopes; for multilevel models, variance components and ICCs.
• Event-history / panel. Survival curves or hazard-ratio tables with the time structure explicit.
• Computational / formal. Figures of the qualitative pattern across parameter ranges with sensitivity panels and a parameter table; for formal models, a comparative-statics table.
• Network. A clear sociogram or block structure with the construct (brokerage, cohesion) annotated, not a hairball.

Quality checks

• Every exhibit is anonymized (no author-identifying site names where they would breach blinding).
• Notes define all abbreviations, significance conventions, units, and N.
• The main-text exhibits tell the core story; the rest go to the standalone appendix.
• A reader who sees only the exhibits could reconstruct the argument.

Anti-patterns

• A data structure that lists codes but shows no path to aggregate dimensions.
• Regression tables with stars but no effect sizes, CIs, or model-build logic.
• A network "hairball" with no annotated structure.
• Overloading the main text and blowing the ~50-page norm instead of using the appendix.

Exhibit pass for Organization Science

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock a level map, a mechanism paragraph, and the cover-letter contribution statement; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: interdisciplinary organization reviewers who ask whether the mechanism travels across levels of analysis.

• Do the pass: For every table or figure, state the estimand or object, sample or case base, uncertainty display, and one sentence the exhibit proves for the venue audience.
• Return a ledger: give claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
• Sibling guard: compare against AMJ for empirical management framing, ASQ for organization-theory depth, Management Science for formal/quantitative operations; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
• Submission-ready gate: do not give final advice until the pack's resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for upload-week rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

Output format

【Centerpiece exhibit】data structure + process model / nested tables / sensitivity figure
【House style】numbered, self-explanatory titles+notes, author-date, no Helvetica Narrow
【Length plan】main-text exhibits vs. standalone anonymized appendix
【Anonymization】site/author identifiers handled
【Next step】orgsci-writing-style