Le poste occupé au retour d’une expatriation : des contraintes et opportunités organisationnelles aux stratégies et attentes individuelles

Our paper focuses on the position held by workers upon repatriation. More specifically, our project aims to understand how the after-expatriation career stage is built. To fulfil this goal, we conducted 26 semi-structured interviews at two levels: the individual level and the organizational level. We interviewed former expatriates and HR managers in charge of international mobility and questioned them about the role they play in this specific career stage. Doing so, this paper contributes to the traditional career field debate on the role of individuals and organizations in career building. Our results are divided in three parts. First, we show that organizational context plays an important role in repatriation. Indeed, each organization can be considered as a particular structure of opportunities/constraints that make easier or more difficult expatriates' return. Second, our results suggest, contrary to the canonical model of organizational career, that organizations do not always play their role of "selectors". Indeed, the position held by expatriates upon their repatriation is rarely the result of a traditional career management process driven by HR managers. Finally, our findings suggest, in accordance with the boundaryless career theory, that the role of employees in career management and career subjective dimensions (such as expectations and values) need to be better considered.