Is the Mommy Track Bump real?
Perhaps the biggest reservation to have about the study that (I suggest) proposes a Mommy Track Bump has to do with the research method my colleagues used.
Because this research finding is from a lab experiment conducted among adult MBA students, it does not show that these differences exists in real, ongoing, organizational life. Rather, we are to infer from these lab results that we would find this bump if we looked for it in a real organization. So, we need to ask whether this finding holds true in real life.
Who needs a dissertation topic? This question is (no maternity joke here) ready to go.
How about we find a ‘real’ organization in which to gather data about full-time and back-to-full-time mothers. We should consider a law firm or an accounting firm- both professions have been (relatively) aggressive in creating Mommy Tracks and “on-ramps” for professionals who are mothers. These organizations also tend to have formal performance appraisals and performance data, which would make testing hypotheses a bit easier.
I am an organizational consultant, change advocate, and organizational identity/reputation scholar with a PhD in leadership & organizations. I research, write about, and consult with organizations on the relationships between organizational identity, actions, and purpose. I teach Technology Management, part-time, at Stevens Institute of Technology.
My current research focuses on how social technologies in the workplace can drive organizational change, generate meaning, and catalyze purpose. See the 
