Faculty profile
David McLain
Associate Professor of Marketing and Management
Contact
Professor David McClain grew up in a railroad and farming family in southwest Iowa. He was the first in his family to attend college and studied engineering operations at the College of Engineering, Iowa State University. He entered the manufacturing engineering industry for a few years before returning to graduate school where he earned his MS in Preventative Medicine and Environmental Health from the College of Medicine, University of Iowa. Professor McClain then went on to receive his Ph.D. in management and human resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
After receiving his Ph.D., Professor McClain taught courses in management and technology management at the University of Michigan, Virginia State University, MIT, University of Colorado, SUNY Institute of Technology and in 2011, he began teaching in the school of business at SUNY Oswego. His publications have been published in The Spanish Journal of Psychology, Project Management Journal, International Journal of Technology and Decision Making and many others. Outside of teaching, he spends his time as a guest associate editor for Frontiers in Cognitive Science/Nature Publishing Group.
Research
Dr. McLain's research concerns occupational health, technology-driven decision making, and project management. The foundations of this research lie in theories of information quality and decision making in organizations. The results of Dr. McLain's research have been published in several management and technology journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, the Project Management Journal, and the Journal of Safety Research. His research has also been presented at conferences including those of the Academy of Management and the Decision Sciences Institute.
Publications
- McLain, D. (2014). Sensitivity to Social Information, Social Referencing, and Safety Attitudes in a Hazardous Occupation. The Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
- McLain, D., and Arquero, J. (2010). Preliminary validation of the Spanish version of the Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance Scale (MSTAT-II). The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 13(1): 476-484.
- McLain, D. (2009). Quantifying project characteristics related to uncertainty. Project Management Journal, 40(4): 60-73.
- McLain, D., and Aldag, R. (2009). Complexity and familiarity with computer assistance when making ill-structured business decisions. International Journal of Technology and Decision Making, 8(3): 407-426.
- McLain, D. (2009). Evidence of the properties of an ambiguity tolerance measure: The Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance Scale–II (MSTAT–II). Psychological Reports, 105(December): 975-988.
Conferences
- McLain, D., Peddibhotla, N., and Aldag, R. (2011). The role of feedback intervention in effective knowledge sourcing, presented in the Academy of Management Conference.
- McLain, D., Peddibhotla, N., and Aldag, R. (2010). Web availability and managerial decision making,presented in the Decision Sciences Institute Conference, 2010.
- McLain, D., Havlovic, S., and Enright, L. (2009). Reducing large truck fatalities and injuries in the U.S. and Canada: A longitudinal analysis, presented in the Canadian Industrial Relations Association (CIRA) Annual Meeting, 2009.