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This paper aims to analyze the differences between assigned expatriates (AEs) and self‐initiated expatriates (SEs) in management and executive positions. The basic research question is how far SEs and AEs differ with respect to their reasons for working internationally and regarding their career aspirations and orientations, and in what way their individual career management differs.

A total of 159 expatriate managers completed an online questionnaire in German. The questionnaire covered psychological constructs and the participating managers' career histories.

It is shown that SEs start their international careers at a younger age, have a higher organizational mobility, and expect higher benefits from international experiences for their future careers. Moreover, career orientation remains relatively stable in SEs over different age groups, whereas it declines for AEs with increasing age.

The study design is cross‐sectional and based on self‐reports, which makes causal explanations of the results difficult and increases the risk of common method bias.

Specific personnel management requirements regarding SEs in contrast to AEs are pointed out especially in the fields of recruitment, retention and career management, which can help support companies in building up a pool of global managers.

The paper adds valuable new insights to the literature on expatriate work and gives further evidence that SEs form a group that has been overlooked for a long time, even though it differs significantly from traditional expatriates who are sent abroad by their employing companies to return some years later.

The paper aims to establish the position that discrete work tasks, rather than entire jobs, are the most useful level of analysis of age differences in work motivation.

A total of 189 workers (aged 18‐65 years) from production and office jobs in the building industry completed a survey on personal and job resources, overall and task‐specific motivation, and job satisfaction.

Age was positively associated with motivation for generativity‐related, but not growth‐related tasks. Personal and job resources were positively and differentially related to task‐specific motivation.

Building on the notion of age‐specific constellations of high and low‐motivation tasks, the findings inspire research into age‐related changes in work motivation. The authors studied only two task types; a more comprehensive task set will in future studies yield deeper insights into motivational regulation. Working with other industry sectors will enhance generalisability.

The results contribute to a theory‐based, empirically grounded platform to assess age‐related changes in work motivation, and to derive age‐differentiated motivational interventions.

Supporting older workers' motivation in light of the demand for longer individual work lives is becoming an important agenda for employers and policy makers. This research contributes to developing tools for such motivation support.

The paper enhances the conceptual clarity of work motivation research by distinguishing global and task‐specific levels of motivation. The conceptualisation differentiates job design approaches by considering age‐related changes at multiple levels instead of focusing on major age effects only.