Directorate of distance education master of business administration

Learning Objectives
 
ӹ To describe the various stages of Career Planning and 
Development 
 
ӹ To differentiate forms of internal mobility of employees like 
Promotion, Demotion, Job Rotation and Transfer
Career Development: Fulfilling a Commitment for Life 
 
The primary focus of career is an individual. Each individual in 
an organization continues to formulate, implement, monitor and fulfill 
his or her own mission in life through employment. In other words, they 
are engaged in Career Management. The word ‘Career’ means a general 
lifelong course of action a person chooses to pursue or a sequence of 
positions occupied by a person during the course of a lifetime.  The 
Oxford Dictionary describes career as a course or progress through 
life or an occupation or profession engaged in as a life-work and a way 
of making a livelihood and advancing oneself. To some people, career 
means advancement, in which case, jobs offering little chance for 
advancement would not be careers. According to another perspective, 
careers are equated with certain high status occupations, while lower 
status occupations are merely jobs. 

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According to Schein’s description of career-cone, career changes 
may happen along three basic dimensions namely a vertical movement 
between different levels, a horizontal movement between different jobs 
at the same level and a radical movement toward or away from the 
inner circles of power in an organization. Every person’s career goes 
alternatively through a period of change, followed by a period of stability 
before transforming again.  A recent idea with regard to careers is 
known as career security, It enjoins upon people to develop professional 
or occupational security due to the development of useful skills and 
competence rather than depending upon organizations for providing 
them job security.