[rcthompson]

The OP's point is that open plan offices don't even encourage things they claim to encourage, like those "accidental encounters" that may be helpful for some people. In an open-plan office, everyone ends up avoiding in-person interaction because of how distracting it can be to those around them.

[tannerc]

A research paper with n = 2 (companies) isn't exactly representative.

Anecdotally, I've seen the complete opposite (where in-person interactions happen far more because of the open floor plan) at three large companies. So the point stands: open floor plans will not produce positive results for every organization, that's to be expected.