SIAM: A model for service implementation analysis applied to the impact of telegraphy in Macaronesian ports

Abstract

Several factors have been considered to explain the success and pre-eminence of some ports over others, such as geography, telecommunications, taxation or the availability of local goods for trade. This is especially significant in the final period of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth century, which corresponds to the rise of steam navigation and the laying of the world network of submarine telegraph cables. This article presents a model (the Service Implementation Analysis Model or SIAM) that aims to analyse the influence of communications technology within historical models of sea trade. To evaluate this model, the authors propose using a scheme based on technology acceptance models, which perform a cost–benefit comparison, and adding an ex post analysis, so that this study can explain further reasons for the incorporation of these solutions. This analysis is complemented by a series of evaluation factors, which form a feedback system to incorporate scientific advances, regulatory changes, the geostrategic context, and social acceptance or rejection. Using these feedback factors, it is possible to study how the economic model is modified as a function of technological factors within the co-evolution of science and society as inseparable elements. This model has been applied to explain the divergence in the evolution of maritime trade among Macaronesian archipelagos before the Great War. However, it can be directly extrapolated to other cases of historical analysis in which technological evolution played a significant role.