If productivity were the primary concern of corporations, open office plans simply would not exist anywhere.

If profits were a primary concern at the executive level, same.

This realization has led me to think over the years of what drives behavior that actually materially harms companies and their workers. Seems to be a combination of factors: there are the primate brain things like that most managers don’t believe their staff is working if they can’t see them and that power displays are more impressive if done in person.

Saving money is important to some execs, but that’s not the primary motivation.

I do think it’s mostly about dominance, which is very important to most of the people who are attracted to the executive class. It’s about enforcing will, lording over the (mini) empire, about demonstrating the worthlessness or at least powerlessness of your underlings to other execs.

This is just as true if the executive is a woman as if it’s a man; perhaps more so.