Total Quality Service: How Organizations Use It to Create a Competitive Advantage

Robert W. Sexty is a commerce professor at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland and author of Canadian Business: Issues and Stakeholders.

Eight chapters, ten appendixes, lots of checklists and cartoons, and
numerous examples of applications make up this how-to book on total
quality service (TQS), also referred to as total quality management
(TQM). Although the book was written for the practitioner, efforts were
made to make it easy to read (there is even a brief section titled
“How to Read This Book”). However, the overuse of acronyms, combined
with the jargon of TQS, makes the reader thankful for the 10-page
glossary of “quality” terminology.

Brown is National Director of the TQS consulting practices of Price
Waterhouse Management Consultants. His book is based on his own
experiences and on a survey conducted by his firm. Unfortunately it
contributes little new to the debate over the quality concept in
management. Moreover, this concept may be fading if the following
headlines from the management literature are any indication: “Managing
Total Quality: Companies Still Struggling with Concept”; “Why
Quality Programs Aren’t—And How They Could Be”; and “Ten Reasons
Why TQM Doesn’t Work.” This book is unlikely to reverse the trend,
and will be found on the bookshelves of many executives—neglected.