Career is seen as a “sequence of positions occupied by a person during the course of a lifetime” (Super, 1980: 282). Beyond this objective perspective career also includes subjective aspects and is understood as “the evolving sequence of work experience over time” (Arthur, Hall, & Lawrence, 1989: 8). Closely linked to career is career success, described as “the positive psychological or work-related outcomes or achievements one has accumulated as a result of one's work experiences” (Judge, Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995: 486). Both career and career success have objective components observed from outside, and internal components perceived from within (Hughes, 1937). Individuals’ perceptions of career and career success may influence what they aspire to in their careers, i.e. their career anchors (Schein, 1977, 1996) and internal career orientations (Derr, 1986a; Derr & Laurent, 1989).

Career anchors are an occupational self-concept that “serves to guide, constrain, stabilize and integrate the person's career” (Schein, 1978: 127). They consist “of (1) self-perceived talents and abilities, (2) basic values, and, most important, (3) the evolved sense of motives and needs as they pertain to the career” (Schein, 1996: 80). Career anchors are shaped by career and life experiences and consist of a person's non-negotiable values and motives when making a decision. As self-concepts, career anchors are a stabilizing force that guides individuals throughout career and life trajectories (Schein, 1996). Results have shown that most individuals have multiple anchors, primary and secondary, that may change through their career and life stages (e.g., Feldman & Bolino, 1996). Schein (1996) finds that varying needs of individuals underlie different career anchors and that the dominant anchor may change with distinct life phases and decisions. Originally, Schein (1977) presents five anchors: Autonomy/Independence, Security/Stability, Technical–Functional Competence, General Managerial Competence, and Entrepreneurial Creativity. Later, he adds three additional anchors: Service or Dedication to a Cause, Pure Challenge, and Lifestyle (e.g., Schein, 1990). Suutari and Taka (2004) introduce an anchor for international mobility, Internationalism.

Building on the concept of career anchor, Derr (1986a) develops the concept of internal career orientations. The term traces back to DeLong (1982), “meaning the capacity to select certain features of an occupation for investment, according to one's own motives, interests, and competencies” (Kim, 2004: 597). It emphasizes “a person's own subjective idea about work life and his or her role within it” (Derr & Laurent, 1989: 455) and internal perceptions of career and career success with a focus primarily on individual expectations, career needs and aspirations, all of which have a major impact on career decisions and evaluations of one's own career or career success (Chompookum & Derr, 2004; Derr, 1986b; Derr & Laurent, 1989). Internal career orientations are the product of one's “motives, values, talents, and personal constraints” (Chompookum & Derr, 2004: 409). Hence it not only concerns what people desire or believe to be important, but also what they perceive they can do best. Derr (1986b) identifies five internal career orientations: Getting Free, Getting Secure, Getting Balanced, Getting Ahead, and Getting High.

Both concepts are widely used (Arthur et al., 1989; Gunz & Peiperl, 2007; Ituma & Simpson, 2007; for studies of career anchors in the international field see Cerdin & Pargneux, 2010 for expatriates, Suutari & Taka (2004) for global leaders; for internal career orientations of expatriates see Siljanen, 2007). Table 1 gives an overview about major characteristics and a possible integration.

The concepts of career anchors and internal career orientations partly overlap and complement each other. This offers the potential for integrating these concepts into core career aspirations (see Table 1, first column). The first four core career aspirations are combinations from both concepts. Freedom subsumes the career anchor Autonomy and Independence and the orientation Getting Free. It stands for autonomy, self-control and personal freedom, particularly from organizational constraints. It is important to have space and responsibility, one's own schedule and work pace under loose supervision. Security includes Security/Stability and Getting Secure. It subsumes the desire for long-term job security and attachment to one organization where it is possible to achieve a sense of identity, order and place in conformity with organizational values and norms. “Security seekers tend to dislike travel and relocation” (Schein, 1990 cited in Suutari & Taka, 2004: 836). Balance covers Lifestyle and Getting Balanced. It includes the desire for balancing the three forces of the career triangle, i.e. work, relationships, and self-development. People with this aspiration tend to look for organizations with strong pro-family values and programs. The aspiration Management and Hierarchy comprises General Managerial Competence and Getting Ahead. It underlines the need for hierarchical advancement and leadership positions to obtain more influence, status, and financial remuneration. Its most important skills are interpersonal and analytical competencies as well as emotional stability.

The other six core career aspirations are directly based on the two respective. Getting High refers to an “adrenaline-first strategy” focusing on excitement, action, adventure, and creativity. People try to avoid boredom and routine and view bureaucratic rules as constraints. Pure Challenge emphasizes competition and challenges. Winning is important, as is overcoming major obstacles and solving the insoluble. Entrepreneurial Creativity emphasizes creating something that is entirely one's own project. People with this aspiration are easily bored, they like to initiate new things rather than managing established ones and they move from project to project. Service or Dedication to a Cause focuses on improving the world. Technical-functional Competence refers to people who are motivated by the work content. They want to become deep experts in their field and thus seek advancement only in their own technical or functional area of competence. Finally, Internationalism focuses on people who seek working in international environments, who long for new experiences in different countries and cultures in order to enhance their competencies and career opportunities.

Openness to the subject matter is one of the principles of qualitative research and has also been applied to this paper. Of course, this does not preclude formulating a point of departure based on the current state of research. Two major questions constitute our starting point.

Career anchors were first looked at in the 1970s. Schein (1996) observed shifts in his findings in the 1990s and his framework has been further extended for specific professional and country samples (e.g., Ituma & Simpson, 2007; Suutari & Taka, 2004). In today's turbulent, fast-paced world, career anchors have become more significant to individuals and shifts in their structure and content can be expected (Schein, 1996). Furthermore, when examining career anchor and internal career orientation concepts in light of the prominent research topics in international business and career studies, certain items seem to be missing, for example the role of relational aspects such as (developmental) networks in careers and career success (e.g., Ibarra & Deshpande, 2007). Against this backdrop, our first major question revolves around the adequacy of existing career aspiration frameworks and whether the specifics of the current economic and political environment in Europe as well as of flexpatriation as a meanwhile established form of working internationally lead to additional new career aspirations.

Empirical insight into flexpatriation is rather scarce compared to the body of research related to expatriation (Welch et al., 2007). Yet, some evidence for characteristics of this form of international work exists, and they may give some indications on potential career aspirations too. Perceived positive aspects of flexpatriation mentioned include variety and novelty, excitement, lifestyle, personal development, personal contacts and networks as well as respite and relaxation from everyday life. Perceived negative factors comprise family separation, travel stress, health issues, safety concerns, incessant work demands and work role conflicts (e.g., DeFrank, Konopaske, & Ivancevich, 2000; Welch & Worm, 2006; Welch et al., 2007). Hence in our study we may expect career aspirations of flexpatriates to particularly evolve around subjective aspects like personal experience and development or variety and change.

Beyond that, there is some evidence for specific career anchors for expatriates. They include Internationalism, Pure Challenge, Lifestyle, and General Managerial Competence (Cerdin & Pargneux, 2010; Suutari & Taka, 2004). In particular, the centrality of Lifestyle/Getting Balanced (e.g., Derr & Laurent, 1989; Schein, 1996) and the difficulties of expatriates in their work-life balance have been pointed out (e.g., Challiol & Karim, 2005; Harvey, 1997). Related to the German language area, Stahl and Cerdin (2004) find that for German expatriates Pure Challenge is the most important reason for accepting an international assignment. Due to the cultural closeness of our sample (e.g., Schwartz, 2006), we expect a similar picture for Austrian individuals. Additionally, expectations and motives for expatriate assignments studied may give some further insights into expatriates’ aspirations. Prior literature (e.g., Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008; Kühlmann, 2004; Stahl et al., 2002) highlights career advancement, increase in responsibility, tasks and status as main motives of accepting international assignments. Hence, we may assume the aspiration of Management and Hierarchy to be central to our expatriate sample as well.

Our literature review leads to our second major question. It focuses on which typical career aspirations of IMEs emerge and which ones appear to be specific to flexpatriates compared to expatriates.

The IMEs in our sample consist of 40 Austrian managers (20 flexpatriates and expatriates each) working in Eastern and Western European countries, particularly Romania and Bulgaria and the UK and Spain, respectively. On average, the flexpatriates (16 males, 4 females) travel abroad five times a month with an average duration of three days per trip. The expatriates (15 males, 5 females) have relocated abroad and lived there for at least a year with an average time abroad of 2.8 years at the time of data collection. To support comparison, we kept our subsamples as homogenous as possible in terms of age (average 34 years), region, having a managerial position in a private company, holding the current job for at least a year, and being partners in dual-career couples where both partners are employed. Sex distribution of individuals – 20% women – corresponds with the present realities of expatriation (e.g., Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2012). We approached and selected most of our interviewees from the IME group via Austrian embassies abroad, chambers of commerce, expatriate clubs, and Xing, an online platform for business networking. Tables 2a and 2b provide more detailed information on the sample.

To ensure the consistency required in comparative analyses (Bortz & Döring, 2002), data were gathered through semi-structured face-to-face interviews conducted in German by the first author. The qualitative measurement of career anchors and internal career orientations includes questions on career choice and underlying motives and goals (see Schein, 1990) as well as conceptualizations of career success (following Derr & Laurent, 1989). Additional questions relevant to this paper address career aspirations as well as short- and long-term career and career success descriptions.

Examples for questions closely linked to career aspirations/career success orientations include: “What does career success mean, what is your understanding of career success?“, “How would you measure career success, what parameters would show that you are successful in your career?”, “Could you describe what you aspire to in your career?”, “Could you describe where you see yourself in your career in about 2–3 years’ time? And in 8–10 years?”, “What needs to happen in 8–10 years that you would (still) say – ‘I am successful’?”, “What are your objectives behind choosing a job as flexpatriate”.

One pre-test interview was conducted to ascertain the quality of data collection. On average the interviews lasted 50min. They were digitally recorded and fully transcribed.

Data analysis applied a variant of qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2003). This provides an inductive, step-by-step procedure to extract core categories from individuals’ responses. To obtain a refined set of core and sub-categories reflecting the original content of interview data we followed both Mayring's (2003) elaboration process and a constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Such a system of categories enhances comparability and intersubjective traceability (Mayring, 2003). To assure a high degree of intra-coder reliability main parts of the interviews were coded again after a couple of months; the final system of categories was rechecked with half of the interviews. Inter-coder reliability (e.g., Krippendorff, 2004) was also evaluated. By comparing the original coding of the first author with the coding of a second rater, the agreement coefficient (Holsti, 1969) amounts to 0.81, which is satisfactory (Krippendorff, 2004). Coding and analysis were supported by the software NVivo 7.0. In order to detect additional commonalities and differences among the subsamples, we followed recommendations for simple quantitative analysis in a qualitative study, e.g., to reveal the dispersion of central themes (e.g., Bühler-Niederberger, 1991; Mayring, 2003). They further support the picture emerging from the content analysis.

In a first step, we inductively extracted categories and sub-categories from our data. In a second step we classified the emerging categories according to the 10 integrated career anchors and internal career orientations that already exist in the theoretical frameworks used. Checking back and forth the categories and corresponding interview passages with the detailed explanations on existing frameworks, we found that not all of the emerging categories fit the existing career aspirations in literature. Therefore, in a third step, we created new, additional categories for career aspirations (see Table 3 and descriptions below).

We found all 10 existing categories in our inductive analysis. The data supports the descriptions in the theoretical frameworks used. Below is a summary of the man ideas behind these categories found in our interviews:

Freedom particularly expresses the need for independence, i.e. freedom in decision-making and flexibility concerning scope of tasks and work procedures, which is also linked to self-employment and requires certain knowledge and development. Security subsumes above all financial and job security, also working for a solid company and following secure decisions. Balance refers above all to quality of life, e.g., finding time to relax, having less stress and strains, settlement, i.e. finding an actual center in one's life, returning home or near home, prioritizing private life, work life balance and wellbeing. Management and Hierarchy covers above all aspirations like hierarchical advancement, acquiring certain managerial positions, status, gaining responsibility, money and assets. Getting High particularly refers to adventure and excitement, challenging, interesting and diversified tasks or activities. Pure Challenge of course also covers challenges and it is especially about outplaying competitors and solving the insoluble. Entrepreneurial Creativity has above all to do with influencing and shaping something, with creating something new, with progress, job variation, including self-employment. Service or Dedication to a Cause comprises aspirations like making a contribution, doing a meaningful job or making a difference for society. Technical-functional Competence above all refers to being an expert, to technical specialization and advancement in one's professional area of expertise, and to be up-to-date in one's field. Internationalism covers the aim of being or traveling abroad, seeking international jobs and intercultural interaction, learning from international experience and expanding one's network internationally.

Our detailed analysis revealed four new, additional categories for career aspirations: Celebrity, Network, Teamwork, and Skills and Knowledge. In line with the basic conceptualization, all four categories are linked to individuals’ talents and abilities, values, motives, and needs.

Celebrity reflects the desire to be exceptional and do something extraordinary. Important components are recognition and appreciation by one's environment, reputation, and visibility. In contrast to Management and Hierarchy and Pure Challenge, this category is not about hierarchical advancement and competition but rather being recognized as somebody special and contributing to something big:

“It needs to be something extraordinary that I am doing, I am not satisfied with average; I know I demand a great deal but once I meet these demands I am extremely satisfied.” [CA, Flex (31, m)1]