This book is about quality redundancy and its replacement by the “performativity” norm. Performativity is a linguistic, social, and political mechanism that produces the intended performance. The author, Alexander Tsigkas, sees this book as a natural continuation of his prior book The Lean Enterprise – From the Mass Economy to the Economy of One. He argues that performativity is the flip side of quality on a coin called identity, and in postmodernism, that is, in the age of Industry 4.0 and beyond, companies should be aiming for performativity and achieve quality as one of its many consequences. The author, therefore, encourages modern businesses to transition from quality orientation as conformance alone to a performance orientation.

Alexander Tsigkas is a retired professor at Democritus University of Thrace (Athens, Greece). His research concentrates on cybernetics and performativity, and especially on the intelligence of natural-artificial-economic systems. He has published several scholarly articles on these topics, including lean enterprises, design-thinking, mass customization and supply chain management.