EXPERIENTIAL DRIVER. The Communicative Dynamics that Affect Buildings

Today’s organizations are drivers and products of the informational, visual, cognitive, and social complexity that characterizes the changing business landscape. Under scrutiny is not only the ability of organizations to survive and grow, but also their ability to understand business strategy and strategic communication as virtuously interwoven. In this context, latent communication, even if it is deliberate and purposeful, is also strategic. This latent communication is expressed in organizational spaces, architectural features of buildings, technologies, and the behavioral and relational dynamics of management and employees within these organizational spaces. Although the latent component receives little attention in strategic communication research, it is important to consider it because the nonverbal can be an affirmation of what is expressed verbally, it can complement it, emphasize it, but also contradict it (Bonaccio et al., 2016). Certainly, when managed well, the nonverbal component can synergize with the organization’s written and verbal expressions to create truly unique and distinctive communication codes. Among the levers of nonverbal communication, this chapter will focus on the organizational space of Nuvola, that is, the space occupied by offices, production facilities, and socialization areas. The organizational space is first and foremost the way the organization presents itself externally and internally. It provides the opportunity to be visible to external stakeholders. For the members of the organization, physical space is a facilitating but sometimes constraining element for organizational behaviors, expressions of creativity, and innovation.