Corporate training beyond formal provision: conditions for meaningful learning and people development

This thesis examines corporate training as a potential lever for meaningful learning and people development, questioning when it moves beyond formal provision and becomes embedded in organizational life. The work starts from the ambiguity of corporate training: while it is increasingly presented as strategic for skills, performance and employee development, it may also remain symbolic or weakly integrated if it is disconnected from everyday work, managerial support and opportunities for application. The theoretical part develops this argument by connecting training literature with the learning organization perspective and with debates on sustainable HRM and social sustainability. The thesis does not assume that training automatically generates people development or social value. Rather, it argues that its meaning depends on a set of organizational, cultural and didactic conditions, including continuity, learner engagement, accessibility, coherence, protected learning time, leadership support and evidence of learning transfer. The empirical part adopts a qualitative and exploratory approach. It focuses on the 2BHappy case study and, in particular, on the Didattica Aumentata framework, complemented by organizational perspectives from Uomo & Ambiente and Servizi CGN. Through interviews and documentary materials, the analysis explores how training is designed, supported and translated into practice. The findings suggest that corporate training becomes meaningful when it is treated not as an isolated event, but as a process embedded in routines, relationships and organizational culture. In this sense, training can become a credible form of care for people only when organizations create the conditions that allow learning to be applied, shared and sustained over time.