For Bernard Simonin, one of the most hazardous myths in business is that collaboration will save you.

“Partnering with others is treated like a miracle cure,” says Simonin, who is a professor of marketing and international business at The Fletcher School, “But, more often, it accelerates decline.” Partnerships, he notes, are fragile, frequently unstable, and far more likely to end early than to deliver pie-in-the-sky results.

Yet amid the failures, Simonin also finds examples of surprising resilience. One of his favorites is the unlikely case of Honeywell, the American manufacturing giant, and its Japanese partner Yamatake. During World War II, communication between the two companies was cut off entirely, and the relationship seemed finished. But when the conflicts ended, the Japanese executives arrived at Honeywell with a payment for the royalties they had quietly accrued throughout the war years. The sum was small, but the gesture carried extraordinary weight: trust still mattered, and the partnership could continue to grow.

That tension between collapse and endurance shapes Simonin’s research, work that has earned recognition from the American Marketing Association, which recently honored one of his co-authored articles as a top contribution to the field of global marketing strategy. Now, his expertise is also helping to shape Tufts’ new Graduate Certificate in Business, a program open to undergraduates. The certificate builds on the principles Simonin studies and positions Tufts students to carry lessons about partnerships into their own careers.

Simonin sat down with Tufts Now to discuss collaboration’s potential pitfalls and how The Fletcher School is teaching students to navigate issues of trust, culture, and strategy.

What’s the first mistake organizations make when they enter collaborations?

Assuming that collaborating will automatically solve problems. If you’re already in a precarious position, rushing into an alliance can accelerate decline. You may give away your last assets just to be an attractive partner, only to discover you’ve been left with nothing.

It’s false optimism. The reality is that partnerships are inherently unstable. Most end earlier than planned, and when you enter from a position of weakness, the risk of collapse only grows.

You’ve written about the role cultural differences sometimes play. How exactly can they undermine a partnership? 

They play a huge role, and it’s often underestimated. We assume globalization has made us all the same because we speak a common business English. But values, time horizons, and even definitions of success can differ sharply.

I’ve seen alliances collapse because one partner defines success by quarterly results, while the other measures progress over five years. Or because what starts as a playful difference—an accent, a meal shared—becomes a serious communication barrier once real work begins. And culture isn’t just national. The culture of a multinational giant is worlds apart from that of a startup. When they try to collaborate, the asymmetry in size, structure, and expectations can be as destructive as a cross-border clash.

Trust comes up often in your work. How does its erosion bring collaborations down?

Trust is slow to build and quick to fall apart. Once it goes, the partnership goes with it.

The Honeywell story shows what happens when trust is honored, even after war. But I’ve also studied alliances where trust collapsed overnight. One company shared its technology, only to see its partner use it to compete against them in another market. The result wasn’t just a failed alliance—it was a nasty divorce.

I sometimes compare it to brand equity: it takes years to build a brand, and you can destroy it in seconds. Trust in collaboration works the same way.

What other mistakes do organizations make when they set up collaborations?

Poor preparation. Too often, alliances are launched without enough due diligence. Everyone is eager to move fast, but they skip the hard questions: Are our goals aligned? Who is responsible for implementing what exactly? What happens if this ends? Who owns the intellectual property?

Another common mistake is failing to anticipate outside forces. The Shell–Lego partnership is a good example. For decades, Lego licensed Shell’s brand in its toy sets, a deal worth over $100 million. Then Greenpeace launched a campaign against Shell’s Arctic drilling, targeting Lego with viral videos and boycotts. Under pressure, Lego ended the partnership. The collaboration itself was working fine, but it was dismantled spectacularly by outside forces.

How can organizations turn failed collaborations into lasting lessons?

The first step is to resist the temptation to move on too quickly. Every failed collaboration deserves a proper autopsy. Too often, companies bury the failure and rush into the next deal, which means the same mistakes surface again and again.

Taking the time to dissect what went wrong is uncomfortable, but it’s also essential. Was the problem misaligned goals? Did outside forces, like regulators or public opinion, play a role? Were expectations ever really shared, or did the partners have “one bed, two dreams,” as a Chinese proverb I like goes? The answers can be painful but exploring them is the only way to avoid repeating the same errors.

This is part of what drew me to the topic in the first place. Early in my career, most of the attention was on the success stories. I was more curious about the failures, because they’re often more revealing. Looking closely at breakdowns tells us how to build stronger collaborations in the future.

How do you help students avoid the darker side of collaboration in their own work?