Graziadio Faculty Member Cristina Gibson Receives Best Paper Award for Research on Team Performance

Pepperdine Graziadio Business School faculty member Cristina Gibson, co-author of the award-winning article “Designing teams for the future: How a permeable organizational design intervention enables environmental prognostication for positive turning points in team trajectories,” has received the Best Paper Award from the Journal of Organizational Behavior. The article, co-authored with C. Collins, was published in the journal’s 2025 volume.

The research explores how organizations can help teams overcome stagnant performance and create sustained positive change. Drawing on a three-year study of 57 sales teams, Gibson and her co-author examined how creating a dedicated group of specialists to bring relevant external market information to frontline teams helped those teams anticipate future challenges and opportunities. Teams that received the intervention experienced a positive shift in performance, with gross profits tracked over 12 quarters.

The award committee recognized the study for combining a novel theoretical contribution with an exceptionally rigorous real-world research design. The committee noted that the research offers both meaningful academic insights and a practical organizational intervention that can help teams access timely information, anticipate what is ahead, and sustain productivity over time. The recognition reflects Gibson’s continued contributions to research at the intersection of organizational design, teams, and performance.

The full article is avaiable here.