Visa coordinates a 23,000-member network of financial institutions and 355 million people use its products to make 7.2 billion transactions exceeding $650 billion annually, according to Hock -- "the single largest block of consumer purchasing power in the world economy."
Yet he says Visa is dispersed and driven by brand and system rather than product and production. Visa is non-authoritarian, with many layers of boards and groups with almost self-perpetuating membership -- all not unlike the Internet. It's ownership is in the form of perpetual, non-transfrrable membrship rights, not stock.
On the other hand, as the number of association members shrink, is Visa in danger of coming under the control of a few banks who could fundamentally change its charter? What lessons in the formation and ownership of Visa are there for the development of an information-payments infrastructure on the Internet?
Now retired as Visa CEO, Hock is founder of The Chaordic Alliance, which is seeking to build from both the successes -- and what Hock sees as some of the mistakes -- of the Visa model. He also published in 1999 a book, "Birth of the Chaordic Age."
The idea is to create organizations which are beholden to their broader stakeholders, not just to stockholders . . . organizations which may have, in fact, no stockholders at all.
Hock describes the notion of a "chaord", the fascinating history of Visa's
formation, and his own benchmarks of the healthy organization, in the
following link:
Among Hock's observations from the founding precepts of Visa:
Dee Hock
bio
Dee Hock profile
which first appeared in Fast Company magazine
Dr. Leslie Ball
Professor of Information Technology
Room 202-D / Isenberg School of Management
University of Massachusetts
Amherst MA 01003
(413) 545-5654
ball@iipc.net