Innovation and Canadian Business Survey, 2014: What’s Risk Got to Do with It?

This briefing, the first in a series, considers the issue of risk and innovation. In 2014, The Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for Business Innovation (CBI) conducted a national telephone survey of Canadian businesses to ascertain attitudes and behaviours relating to innovation. The survey considered the topic from three perspectives: the risk-taking attitudes of Canadian business people; risk aversion as managerial constraint; and the risk-taking skills of Canadian employees. All three perspectives play a role in Canadian companies’ approach to risk, and these frame our analysis. The briefing also ties in other CBI work on the identification of the skills, attitudes, and behaviours that may be holding back innovation in Canada’s businesses.