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Canadian business leaders recognize that identifying and working collaboratively with the best business partners is essential to innovation. At the same time, they express a limited appetite for negotiating and sharing the risks of business partnerships.

Achieving successful business partnerships was identified as an important skill by 73% of Canadian business leaders responding to the 2013 GE Global Innovation Barometer, a worldwide survey — seven points higher than the global average. In fact, 79% of Canadian respondents believe their firms would be more successful at innovation by working with partners than without them.

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Canadian businesses want to find partners to help them enter new markets (85% — six points higher than the global average), improve an existing product or service (83% — eight points higher) and to access new technology (81% — two points higher).

However, committing to partnerships requires a leap of faith. Canadian businesses say they’re reluctant to collaborate with entrepreneurs or other companies because of a perceived lack of protection of confidentiality and intellectual property (68% —four points higher than the global average). They’re also more likely to be mistrustful of potential partners, with 64% of respondents identifying this impediment, 17 points above global average. Other concerns include a fear of losing talent, the lack of a tested collaboration process, concerns over unequal revenue sharing and an inability to find suitable partners.