[j-c-m]

Open offices are primarily designed to save money, and they save a ton of money when compared with private offices combined with collaborative working spaces (fancy word for conference rooms/areas). It is very easy to quantify this cost difference, and this cost savings is immediate. It is much more difficult to quantify productivity impact vs costs, and this would not be realized clearly and immediately.

So 10/10 times now companies pick the option that costs 2x-3x less, be dammed with trying to figure out its impact on productivity.

[w4]

Bingo. This is what these discussions so often miss: open office floorpans translate to immediate savings on the company's balance sheets. They permit companies to stuff more workers into fewer square feet, and those square feet are how commercial real estate is priced. All of the stated benefits of open office floor plans (culture, collaboration, communication, etc) are subordinate to, or justification for, those savings.