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Using narratives from four women following international careers in France, this paper seeks to offer an insight into the depth and complexity of career issues for women working in a foreign country.

This is a qualitative hermeneutic inductive research undertaking on international protean careers, using in‐depth interview data together with contextual information regarding the specificity of the location in question.

The concept of the protean career is highlighted in the findings. This concept is described as “having an ability to reform oneself” also referred to as “morphing”. The findings in this study demonstrate how the women in the sample had the proven capability of morphing their professional role over time due to circumstance.

The findings are limited as they cannot be generalised to a wider population due to the small sample size. However, the aim was not to generalise, but to share an in‐depth collection of real‐life stories from women.

Careers are complex, even more so on an international level. Individual choices regarding career pathways require more individualised career management approaches within organisations.

This research adds to the limited extant European research on women and international careers from a qualitative perspective.

The highly unpredictable, complex, and dynamic business environment forces companies to innovate constantly. One organizational response to coping with environmental pressures is organizational ambidexterity, that is, the ability to pursue simultaneously the exploitation of existing capabilities and the exploration of new opportunities. It has an impact on the way of working, and consequently, organizations need to reevaluate their talent strategies. With this conceptual contribution, we first provide a fresh view on talent and talent management (TM) by suggesting an ambidextrous TM approach, including novel TM practices that have been rather neglected in the so far dominant traditional TM approach. It centers on the system-controlling element of an ambidextrous mindset. Second, in a theory-based framework, we explain how dynamic TM capabilities (hybrid, dual, and ambidextrous TM), which represent processes for deploying, developing, and shaping talent, can contribute to gaining competitive advantages in various ambidextrous structures reflecting the complexity and dynamism of and within human resource (HR) ecosystems. The authors advance the under-researched process perspective on TM by using the lenses of the HR ecosystems discussion, insights from a dynamic view on the person–environment fit, and dynamic capabilities. The authors conclude with a broad agenda for future research in TM in dynamic environments.

The purpose of this paper is to report three main findings. First, the paper reports why local organizations in developing countries would demand self-initiated expatriates (SIEs); second, the paper reports why SIEs accept employment with such organizations; and third, the paper reports the factors that seem to govern the role allocation to SIEs.

The authors used semi-structured interviews to elicit and collect data. The authors followed the procedures of grounded theory for data analysis.

Local organizations in developing countries seem increasingly willing to employ SIEs. Emergence of hitherto nonexistent businesses, rapid expansion, global ambition and organizational maturity seem to drive the demand for SIEs. Industrial decline elsewhere, attractiveness of emerging economies, challenging role, prior experience within similar countries and non-working spouse are factors that enable the SIEs’ acceptance of employment with such organizations. Required boundary spanning and repatriation status determine the role allocation for SIEs.

The findings may be idiosyncratic as they result from a qualitative research design. External validity could, therefore, be low.

Managers can benefit by comprehending the factors motivating SIEs to work for local organizations in developing countries. SIEs can benefit by understanding why such organizations need them, and the roles they are likely to get therein.

Unlike the typical SIEs studied in literature, the authors theorize about SIEs who move from developed countries to work in developing countries and occupy senior positions. Additionally, unlike a typical SIE study, the authors gathered the perspectives of both SIEs and organizations. Lastly, the paper is about an emerging trend: SIEs’ employment in the local organizations of developing countries.