By Adriana Betancourt
Academic research often starts with a simple question, but that question can turn into years of discovery, challenges and meaningful impact.
At NIU’s College of Business, Professor of Management Amanda Ferguson studies how people work together, turning everyday observations into research that helps explain what makes teams successful. Her work has been published in outlets such as Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal and Journal of Applied Psychology.
With a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from London Business School and professional experience at Eli Lilly and Company, Ferguson brings both academic expertise and real-world insight into her work. Her research focuses on team dynamics, for example how teams are formed, how they function and how different factors influence performance and decision-making.
Professors — especially tenure-track faculty — are often expected to conduct and publish original research, a process that requires significant time, training and persistence. A professor’s research project often begins with identifying a meaningful question that stems from something observed in the real world or a gap in existing knowledge.
“Not every research question is compelling or worthy of a systematic investigation,” Ferguson said. “You need to ask a compelling research question, which can be from observing a puzzling phenomenon, like something you see in the world that doesn’t make sense, or from realizing that the current scholarly articles about a particular topic are incomplete or missing something.”
To begin, researchers design a study and determine how to collect the data needed to answer their questions. Before collecting data, they must secure resources and receive approval for their study, especially when human subjects are involved. Once approved, the process moves into data collection, organization and analysis.
After analyzing their findings, researchers write a scholarly article and submit it to academic journals, where it goes through the peer-review process. Most papers are revised multiple times or even rejected before being accepted, making persistence a key part of the research journey.
One of Ferguson’s research project ideas began while watching the Super Bowl, when she noticed that officiating teams, despite being highly skilled, had likely never worked together before.
“As a teams scholar, I thought that was really strange,” Ferguson said. “The pressure that those officials face to make accurate calls and back each other up must have been enormous.”
That observation led her to explore how familiarity impacts team performance under pressure. To begin, she analyzed NCAA football data, examining how officiating teams made decisions in high-stakes games. Her research also required securing funding to access specialized data and spending significant time organizing and preparing it.
To strengthen her findings, Ferguson and her team later conducted an additional experiment to better understand how individuals respond to pressure when working with familiar versus unfamiliar teammates. The project required revisiting multiple stages of the research process, ultimately leading to a more comprehensive study, but also a much longer timeline.
Research is rarely a straight path, and projects often evolve as new data is collected, leading researchers to revisit their ideas and refine their approach.
“Sometimes the data may not support your initial predictions, and it often reveals things you may not have thought about,” Ferguson said. “In that case, you need to give your research further thought and possibly design additional studies.”
Setbacks are also a natural part of the process. Rejection is common when submitting work to academic journals, and many papers go through multiple rounds of revision before being accepted.
“One of my papers went to eight different journals before it was published,” Ferguson shared. “But the ninth journal gave it a chance, helped improve it and it even won a best paper award.”
But research is not only for faculty members. For students interested in getting involved, Ferguson recommends starting with opportunities like the Research Rookies program, in which undergraduate students are paired with faculty to work on research projects and present their findings.
“Research gives students the chance to be creative, to think about new ideas, to set goals, make plans and reflect on what they learned,” Ferguson said. “It also builds skills like critical thinking, decision-making and communication that are valuable beyond the classroom.”
