In this paper, we provide an ex-ante explanation for what kind of partners the company cooperates with across facing innovation obstacles. Using a sample of Taiwanese manufacturing companies from Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey derived from CIS4, we examine firm partners' exploration choices along three risk dimensions: the lack of technological opportunity, the lack of innovation and technical personnel and the lack of market opportunity. We argue that firm-level collaboration decisions find differing responses when received by the selection risk environment. In the results of this study, the companies do not prefer to collaborate with outsiders in the innovation process even if they involve into trouble in Taiwan. We find the manufacturing companies in Taiwan would like to collaborate with supply and demand sides in the innovation process, include innovation new to the firm and market, more than other real outsiders. This study contributes to modify the research methodology from marketing management to understand the relationship between collaboration decision and innovation risks.