David McLain

Classes taught

Fall 2024:
MGT 350 - Entrepreneurship
MGT 495 - Management Policy & Simulation
MBA 590 - T: Entrepreneurship

Professor David McLain grew up in southwest Iowa near the tracks of the Burlington railroad where his father worked as a ticket and station agent. He was the first in his family to attend college and earned a BS in Engineering Operations from the College of Engineering, Iowa State University. After working in the defense technology industry and at laboratory start-ups he earned his MS in Preventative Medicine and Environmental Health from the College of Medicine, University of Iowa; Ph.D. in Management and Human Resources from the Graduate School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and SM in Technology Policy from the School of Engineering, MIT. 

Professor McLain has taught courses in management and technology as a faculty member at Virginia State University and the State University of New York and has been visiting faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, and the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China. Since 2011, he has been teaching in the School of Business at SUNY Oswego. In addition to teaching, Dr. McLain serves as a reviewer for numerous academic journals.
 

Research

Dr. McLain's research concerns occupational safety and decision-making, including specific interests in technology influences, neural information processing, and modeling and measuring uncertainties and ambiguities. His research has been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Project Management Journal, Journal of Safety Research, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and others. His research has also been presented at many conferences including those of the Academy of Management and the Decision Sciences Institute.
 

Selected 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. (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.

McLain, D. L., & Jarrel, K. (2007). The perceived compatibility of safety and production expectations in hazardous occupations. Journal of Safety Research, 38(3), 299-309. 

McLain, D. L., & Keenan, J. P. (1999). Risk, information, and the decision to respond to wrongdoing in an organization. Journal of Business Ethics, 19, 255-271.

McLain, D. L. (1995). Responses to health and safety risk in the work environment. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 1726-1743.

McLain, D. L. (1993). The MSTAT-I: A new measure of an individual's tolerance for ambiguity. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 53, 183-189.

Selected Conference Presentations, Professional Development Workshops, and Symposiums

McLain, D. L. (2019). Using Neuro-Cognitive and Biosensory Measurement Techniques for Management Research (organizer, chair, and presenter). Professional Development Workshop, Academy of Management Conference.

McLain, D. L. (2016). Using a Multiple Information Resource Process When Making Organizational Decisions. Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division, Academy of Management Conference.

McLain, D. L. (2008). How to Study Project Management: Diverse Research Methods and Studying Project-Specific Phenomena (organizer, chair, and presenter). Professional Development Workshop, sponsored by the Research Methods, Business Policy and Strategy, and Operations Management Divisions, Academy of Management Conference.

McLain, D. L. (2003). The social construction of safety. Invited talk, Occupational Safety Conference, Georgetown University.

McLain, D. L. (2001). Making the complex simple: Using a design structure matrix to model complexity and analyze uncertainty in project management. Operations Management Division, Academy of Management Conference.

McLain, D. L. (1996). Risk-based planning: Decision processes and structures for managing the threat of low probability - high consequence events (chair, organizer and presenter). Symposium, sponsored by the Organizational Behavior Division and Managerial and Organizational Cognition Interest Group, Academy of Management Conference.

Education

Degrees
S.M., Technology and Policy, Engineering Systems Division (now Institute for Data, Systems, and Society), College of Engineering, MIT, 2000.
Ph.D., Management, Department of Management and Human Resources, Graduate School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991.
M.S., Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, College of Medicine, University of Iowa, 1982.
B.S., Engineering Operations, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, Iowa State University, 1978.

Short Course Programs
Entrepreneurship series SUNY Start-up Summer Course of the SUNY Research Foundation, 2021.
Regional I-Corps program of the National Science Foundation, 2022.