Culture defines every company regardless of whether it is an early stage startup or a global enterprise. It influences behavior, and for this reason, culture is a very important issue for corporate innovation. Many corporate innovation initiatives failed because the corporations driving them lacked innovation culture or innovation DNA.
Based on my experience from the startups I built as an entrepreneur and the ones I funded over the past 15 years as a VC, I always claim that a company’s culture is defined by the first 10 employees, starting with the startup’s founders. Corporate culture is driven by leadership (and here); is based on performance management; and can only be achieved if there exists a common vocabulary among the individuals that live it.