But most analysts see culture, vague as the term is, as the fundamental and often invisible underpinning of a company, anchored by the founder’s core values and guiding business decisions like Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”

“Those values provide the foundation for any company’s culture, particularly in family-owned businesses,” says Paul Karofsky, executive director of Northeastern University’s Center for Family Business in Boston, Mass. “They can be explicit or implicit, and speak to long-term strategies or even how the employees are treated by management in terms of benefits and salaries.”

Cultures can be highly disciplined or wildly entrepreneurial, open or closed, greedy or benevolent. But strongly defined cultures are always crucial to a company’s success and can be, if they do not evolve, the authors of its downfall. Carol Lavin Bernick, vice chairman of Alberto-Culver’s Consumer Products Worldwide division, which has seen a dramatic turnaround in its business prospects, gives sole credit to its renewed corporate culture. “Everything at Culver relates to the culture, and how strongly our people believe in and implement our values,” she says, adding that the company has worked hard toward a more open, inclusive environment where everyone shares responsibility for the company’s successes. “Every decision we make is seen as an opportunity to support or undermine the culture we want.”