This paper sheds light on the protagonists, discourses and devices, which have shaped “quality” as a social value and made it possible to objectify, to quantify, and therefore to manage it. It first outlines how a specific managerial knowledge and dedicated statistical tools were developed, and then dwells on a particular moment: the launching of a U.S. federal program aiming at fostering organizational practices related to “total quality”, through the presentation of an award known as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. This joint initiative of business and policy-makers emphasizes the efforts that have to be accomplished not only to design a universalizable management model, but also to spread it as a legitimate technology of government in the firm as well as in the state. The case of the prize-winner Xerox, and more specifically the role played by its CEO as a quality entrepreneur both in industry and in education, exemplifies how this work of dissemination and legitimation is actually carried out.