ABSTRACT
In recent years, total quality has been discussed a lot in Italy. The basic assumption is that this is something more than simple managerial techniques: it is a new managerial “philosophy”, involving both a downright change in cultural paradigm and a concrete opportunity for management initiative – what is more, entirely under its own control. According to this assumption, top management should deeply change its way of thinking, while at the same time learning new managerial techniques. Having accomplished this, top managers should initiate an educational and reformist course of action, trickling down through all company channels, until it reaches production workers on the shop floor. Romiti, speaking in the by-now-famous Marentino caucus, 1 stated that this was a real revolution, but entirely in the hands of higher and top management. Such a revolution allegedly does not pertain to the sphere of power, i.e. to politics. This article intends to prove that exactly the opposite is true: namely, that accomplishing total quality is an eminently political, much more than technical, operation.
