This is a management oriented book about efficiency, quality and
effectiveness designed for an audience of management practitioners,
scholars, and students. The integrative approach developed in this book
contains new ideas regarding quality and efficiency-based effective
management. These ideas lend themselves to managerial applications. This
work is not meant to provide an exhaustive account of the measurement,
and applications of effectiveness, quality, and efficiency concepts.
With the exception of the treatment of conventional productivity
concepts and measurements in Chapter 2, and of production flexibility in
Chapter 5, the discussion in this book is largely non-teclmical. Among
management practitioners, the book may be of particular interest to
managers with broad strategic orientations in the fields of production
management, quality management, marketing, and management of human
resources. The academic audience is likely to include scholars and
students interested in strategic planning, applied productivity
analysis, quality management, marketing management, and management of
human resources. The book could also be used as a supplementary text to
or part of the readings in basic and advanced courses in strategic
management, production management, and quality management. Concepts and
dimensions of efficiency, quality, and effectiveness, as used throughout
this book, are introduced in Chapter 1. The intricate sets of
relationships among effectiveness, quality, and efficiency are explored.
