Aligning the value of training to organizational goals is an emerging need in human resource management. This study, aiming at expanding the research on training evaluation from a strategic management perspective, examines whether the use of the Balanced Scorecard approach can enable an effective delivery of training strategies, thus strengthening the link between training and organizational goals. The research was based on action research methodology. Researchers worked for about 12 months with three healthcare organizations. The research findings indicate that the balanced scorecard: (1) allows visualization of a clearly focused and internally consistent map of cause‐and‐effect relationships, turning the functional training efforts into strategic results; (2) effectively supports the training function both in managing training processes and in delivering targeted organizational outcomes; (3) offers a specific set of critical measures for evaluating the training function's performance; and (4) permits the fostering of a sound alignment between training programme objectives and functional goals. Various theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This paper tries to point out the role and the characteristics of management control systems (MCS) in organisations whose main goal is not for profit (NPO). Are MCS a necessary or (at least) a useful tool to manage these organisations? How have they to fit the typical nature of NPOs? Are the traditional control processes (planning, programming, budgeting, reporting) effective in NPOs? What kind of information do they use? What is the ‘state of the art’ and the degree of sophistication of MCS in NPOs? To address these issues, a survey has been conducted among 76 Italian NPO top managers, and the results are reported in this paper.

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