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Both theoretical and conceptual understanding of innovation has developed significantly since the early 1980s. More noticeable, however, are the major changes that have been experienced in empirically-oriented innovation research as a result of the introduction of firm level innovation surveys. Collecting innovation related data via firm based surveys has now become a common practice for many countries for example, Canada, United States, Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand as well as almost all EU countries. These survey-lead approaches have transformed our understanding of the nature and determinants of innovation and also increased our understanding of the role played by innovation in growth. At the same time, the surveys themselves have also been adapted as our conceptual understanding of innovation has increased. As such, the balance of innovation-related research has shifted from a theoretical to a primarily empiricist-lead agenda, and increasingly combined both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The objective of this paper is examine how our understanding of innovation has evolved over the last few decades, to identify the major theoretical and empirical influences on our understanding, and to assess the role which innovation surveys have played in this evolution. Evolutions in Our Understanding of InnovationOur understanding of the roles which innovation, technology and new firm formation play in economic growth has been slowly developing over many decades. Classical authors including Marx, Marshall and Schumpeter all speculated on the role which technology and knowledge played in transforming the economy, by focusing on the distributional, clustering and restructuring aspects of technological change, respectively. However, it is Schumpeter (1934, 1939) who is most notably associated with the phenomenon of innovation, which he described in terms of processes of 'creative destruction', and

Collaborative relationship is said to foster sustainable supply chain operations. It is argued that relationship based supply chain produces financially tangible results in many areas of supply chain. The concept is based on transaction cost theory arguing that the final price is determined in the market by total cost. A collaborative relationship fosters trust that leads to lowering transaction cost and speed up time to market which creates "serial equity" rather than "spot equity". Recent research on collaboration and supply chain performance seems to suggest tangible financial gains. Yet, no theoretical framework has been developed and empirical evidences have been lacking to support such hypothesis. A clearly defined theoretical framework and supportive empirical evidence between these two constructs are needed for future research in this area. This article attempts to articulate the theoretical foundation of collaborative relationship in supply chain and survey empirical results on financial gains reported in various research studies.