Faculty Directory

Bio

James A. Kling, Ph.D. has been with NU’s College of Business since 1990. He was born in Rochester, N.Y., and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1989. His primary academic field is Supply Chain Management.   

Dr. Kling brings a wide range of knowledge and experience to the college. He teaches at the undergraduate and graduate level and he is the lead instructor in the Supply Chain Center’s professional development programs.  He holds a CSCMP SCPro Professional Certification—level one, recognizing “comprehensive supply chain knowledge.”  He is a former departmental chairperson (5 years), University Mission Director (3 years), University Senate Executive (7 years) and currently serves as co-chair of the Academic Integrity Board.

While on sabbatical leave during the spring 2014 semester, Dr. Kling taught Principles of Management in a four week format in China at the Shanghai Industry and Commerce Foreign Language College. During his previous sabbatical in 2006 he took a full year leave to work with local businesses to improve transportation and supply chain practices and led a year-long project to restructure inventory management processes at a Buffalo area hospital chain.

He established the Center for Supply Chain  Excellence in 2000. He has recently become adept at teaching on-line and operates a website business, www.Klinginfo.com.

Teaching

While teaching many graduate courses on-line, he also coordinates the classroom sections of the freshman course Management Principles, introducing business plans and pushing students to read about successful entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Phil Knight, Blake Mycoskie, and Jeff Bezos.  He regularly teaches the following courses:

• MGT 160-  Management Principles
• MGT 221 - Supply Chain Logistics
• MGT 324 - Transportation Systems & Simulation
• MGT 570 - Principles of Management for MBA 
• MGT 655 - Global Transportation Systems
• MGT 674 – Strategic Supply Chain Management

Research

Dr. Kling has a long time interest in transportation pricing and fuel markets, and more recently inventory accuracy and teaching strategies. 

His research with Executive in Residence Jack Ampuja about e-commerce shipping and low density packages is very timely. During COVID-19, on-line shopping skyrocketed 70-90% overall compared to 2019.  This has put tremendous pressure on the supply chain, especially for e-commerce transportation deliveries.  In 2018, Kling and Ampuja published an article about dimensional weight pricing in the e-commerce era.  This problem results when large but low weight boxes take up precious space in trucks and planes which force parcel delivery companies to add special surcharges for these packages.  The research discusses how parcel shippers can best respond to this costly trend in order to keep e-commerce shipments affordable.   The article was published in The International Journal of Logistics Economics and Globalization and is now available in full here “Dimensional Weight Pricing in Transportation and Logistics: US shipper knowledge and best practice responses in the e-commerce era”.

In 2020, he published with Dr. Todd Inouye, “From Farm to Cup: A Coffee Supply Chain Negotiation Role‐Play” in Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education. 

In 2018, he co-authored with honor Student Emma Fermier,  “What Caused the Inventory to Sales Ratio Bubble in 2015-2016?”  a poster presentation at the CSCMP Edge Conference, in Nashville, Tennessee. 

In 2017, he published with student Alex Keller,  “Fighting for an End to Federal Ethanol Mandates may be an Ideal Social Justice Cause for Students at U.S. Catholic Universities.”   In the Journal of Vincentian Social Action. Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2017.    You can access it here: https://scholar.stjohns.edu/jovsa/vol2/iss1/ In 2020, his sabbatical is focusing on writing, including a book project.

In 2020, his sabbatical is focusing on writing, including a book project.

Service

Dr. Kling is an elected member of the University Senate and serves as the chair of its Standards and Reporting Committee.  He is co-chair of the NU Academic Integrity Board.

Dr. Kling is a strong advocate of the Vincentian Mission at Niagara University. He is a lector at the University Chapel. He led 16 NU students on a week-long service trip to the Germantown area of Philadelphia in 2006. He was long-time board member at Stella Niagara Education Park, a pre-K through 8^th grade private Catholic school in Lewiston, N.Y.  While on the board he successfully pushed the school to adopt an outdoor education program.