Peopleware is a classic

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Demarco/dp/0932633439/?nodl=1&dpl...

"Suppose that in addition to your present duties, you were made responsible for space and services for your people. You would have to decide on the kind of workplace for each person, and the amount of space and expense to be allocated. How would you go about it? You'd probably want to study the ways in which people use their space, the amount of table space required, and the number of hours in a day spent working alone, working with one other person, and so forth. You'd also investigate the impact of noise on people's effectiveness. After all, your folks are intellect workers - they need to have their brains in gear to do their work, and noise does affect their ability to concentrate.

For each of the observed kinds of disturbance, you'd look for an easy, mechanical way to protect your workers. Given a reasonably free hand, you would investigate the advantages of closed space vs opens space. This would allow you to make a sensible trade-off of cost against privacy and quiet. Finally, you would take int account people's social needs and provide some areas where a conversation could take place without disturbing others.

It should come as no surprise to you that the people who do control space and services for your company (particularly if it is a large company) don't spend much time thinking about any of the concerns listed above."

Peopleware[0], DeMarco and Lister, First Published in 1987

[0] https://amzn.to/3d9uHPO

Peopleware — Productive Projects and Teams

https://amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-DeMarc...

The book "Peopleware" discusses this. https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Tom-De... Basically, open floor plans are cheap and you can maximize metrics like $/person-sqft.

Other factors:

* "everyone else does it"

* Open floor plans seem like a good idea when you first hear them; the downsides are not immediately obvious. Verbal reasoning, no matter how flawed, almost always wins.

* The decision makers tend to be blissfully unaware of the dynamics of knowledge work because their work is typically interrupt-driven. Thus, they don't see any problem putting 50 programmers in a cramped and echoey gymnasium.

* Even if the decision maker is fully aware, their boss might not agree to a higher-cost office plan. Actual dollars will almost always beat non-metrics like "compounded employee productivity" or "time and money not wasted due to mistakes caused by people operating in a distracting environment".

--Yes, in theory you could design an experiment, but that would delay the decision and probably require spending money. And the outcome would probably be misinterpreted: the open floor people will be louder and will appear to be working harder. (But are they actually more productive or are they just scrambling to fix all the bugs they created?)