Ceris-Cnr, W.P. N° 2/2003

The measurement of the intensity of the
technological innovation as a growing function
of the number of adopters (a) and the social
welfare /utility (w), shows the effects caused by
the spread of innovative waves in the
environment. In other words, when passing from
an innovation of I degree intensity to VII
degree, there is an increase both in users
(consumers,
firms,
institutions)
and
environmental changes (sectors, markets,
industrial dynamics, competition and well
being). The intensity of the VII degree is
reserved for those innovations, and only those,
that change human communication and have
mass diffusion, while biotechnology and new
materials are positioned in VI degree and not
VII, unlike certain authors (Tidd et al., 2001).
A metric of the innovation, however correct,
cannot ignore the temporal dimension and
cannot be positioned too early in its evolution,
since research has shown that certain
technological innovations, though superior, may
be subject to the lock-in effect to the advantage
of lesser innovations which use their pathdependency (for instance the QWERTY
keyboard documented by David, 1985).
The seismic approach starts from the
consideration that innovative waves spread
through the economic environment, causing a
series of changes and the more these interest
people and increase individual and social utility,
the greater their intensity and therefore their
level on the scale.
Within the theoretical structure of the seismic
approach it is possible to find some logic from
the approaches used in literature for the
measurement of technological change. Above all
the seismic approach uses both a macro point of
view, and a micro as explained in paragraph 2. It
is an approach that focuses on the objects
(Archibugi, 1988; 1998), evaluating the
economic-social impact of the innovation. The
hedonism of the seismic approach differs from
the sense of Court, Stone and Lancaster, and lies
rather in the increase in human pleasure offered
by the innovation, such as the increase both of
individual well-being (for example the benefits
of a medicine for the adopters) and the social
benefits, with a significant impact on the wealth
of nations. As in Dodson’s approach, the
technological change develops with the surfaces
that are planes in a bi-dimensional space or
hyper-planes n dimensions, but unlike this
evaluates the economic impact of the
technological innovation calculating the volume

underlying these surfaces. Majer’s functional
approach (1985), like other approaches,
considered certain attributes of the technology
which are indicators of performance. Here we
consider exogenous performance indicators, not
the endogenous attributes: which human
activities
the
technological
innovations
improve?
For example in the case of the tractor, the
productivity per acre was increased, the number
of working hours was reduced, the quality of the
produce was improved, and so on. Knight’s
structural approach (1985) can be used when
two performance structures are compared (e.g.
productivity per acre) pre- and post- innovation.
The differences between these two structures
will also determine the degree on the SIIN scale.
We have seen that an innovation with a high
degree has a greater performance structure
(increase in productivity) than one of a low
degree. The seismic approach, considering the
analogy with geophysics, considers that the
innovation spreads through the environment
with waves that they are those identified by
Sahal in his holistic approach; Sahal also
represented the SOA with mountains of
probability which emerged on a plane and the
magnitude was given by the height. The area
underlying (weight) gives the magnitude of the
seismic approach.
The application used to describe the
magnitude of innovative intensity is clearly a
simplification, since in reality it is more correct
to write a function of innovation and diffusion
impact as f: ℜn→ℜn. Therefore it would be
more correct to write the dimension of
innovative intensity using the following form of
the magnitude:

∫ ∫

MATECH := ... f ( x1 , x2 ,...,xn )dx1dx2 ,...,dxn
A

As far as the functional form f with which the
path dependency of the technological innovation
(David, 1993) develops depends on a series of
factors that Rycroft and Kash (2002)
summarised as culture, institutions and
organisational learning.
The scale of innovative intensity is a starting
point for the measurement and classification of
the economic impact of the technological
innovation on the environment. The analogy
with the Mercalli seismic scale is justified by the
simplicity, since like the seismic waves as the
intensity of the innovations increases so the
effects and the geo-economic changes. In the

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