l Career Anchors: A Comparison Between Organization-Assigned and Self-Initiated Expatriates

In the present study, based on the theory of fit, we have tested hypotheses on a sample of 303 French expatriates, comparing career anchors between assigned and self-initiated expatriates. We found that lifestyle and internationalism are both very important anchors for assigned as well as self-initiated expatriates, although most anchors differ among these groups. Furthermore, we have introduced a measure of the internationalism career anchor that presents promising psychometric characteristics. Our results provide important theoretical and practical implications. In particular, they show that both assigned expatriates and self-initiated expatriates can be engaged in a boundaryless career. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.