That's the entire point: no one can possibly prove or disprove that open office plans are a significant contributing factor to company success, or if they're ju

That's the entire point: no one can possibly prove or disprove that open office plans are a significant contributing factor to company success, or if they're just correlated, or if they're entirely irrelevant. Yet the popular story here is that they're highly detrimental and have a causal relationship with low productivity. That might be true for individuals, but we have no evidence (as far as I know) that it's true at an organizational level. The benefits to the company from a systems perspective could far outweigh the difference in individual productivity. We don't know, yet people act as though that systems view is not relevant. I'm not making an argument, anyway, I'm pointing out a hole in the analysis: there are factors that are possibly involved that are more difficult to quantify that everyone seems to be alright with just ignoring. My hunch is that the lack of quantifiability of the cultural, social, and human factors resulting from office plans makes them a blind spot for people with more logical/analytical perspectives, like yourself. I fail to see how that's boring or irrelevant.