I'd like to see some science applied to this topic.
A decrease in productivity may not be an insurmountable business problem. Private offices take up more square footage which has a direct annual cost. Open floor plans have higher density, which might offset the decrease in productivity. Open floorplans may/may not work well depending on the number of folks involved (eg. a team of 100 vs a team of 10) and types of job functions and size of the open floor plan area (maybe "pods" work better than one wide open area).
I'm sure there's lots of interest questions that could be answered if some rigor where applied to this issue.
A decrease in productivity may not be an insurmountable business problem. Private offices take up more square footage which has a direct annual cost. Open floor plans have higher density, which might offset the decrease in productivity. Open floorplans may/may not work well depending on the number of folks involved (eg. a team of 100 vs a team of 10) and types of job functions and size of the open floor plan area (maybe "pods" work better than one wide open area).
I'm sure there's lots of interest questions that could be answered if some rigor where applied to this issue.