Facilitating transition from maternity leave to work for working mothers: A self-efficacy intervention study.

The return from maternity leave to work is a critical career transition period for working mothers. To help their readaptation to work, we developed and examined a training program for cultivating their work-family balance self-efficacy in a pretest-posttest design and investigated the time-lagged effect of the boosted self-efficacy on their employment attitude and in-role performance after they returned to work. Data were collected from 100 maternity leave takers from 16 companies in Japan before the training (Time 1), immediately after it (Time 2) and 6 months after returning to work (Time 3), and from their supervisors at Time 3.

Generalized exchange orientation: Conceptualization and scale development.

We conceptualize generalized exchange orientation, and develop and validate a scale assessing individual orientations toward generalized exchange as well as reciprocal and negotiated exchange for offering a full set of measurements for social exchange orientation. Through 4 phases and using data from 1,408 participants, we established factorial, nomological, discriminant, and incremental validity of the social exchange orientation Scale and examined measurement invariance of the scale between samples from the United States and Japan. First, our findings indicate the newly developed scale for generalized exchange orientation (GEO) is distinct from measures of other forms of social exchange orientation and prosocial orientation.