Clarke Ching blogs about the legendary Hawthorne effect being a flawed theory.

Without commenting on the argument of the theory being flawed, I'd like to draw attention to something in Rice's article:

Proponents of the Hawthorne effect say that people who are singled out for a study of any kind may improve their performance or behavior not because of any specific condition being tested, but simply because of all the attention they receive.

...

For example, unlike the big open floor of the relay-assembly department, the test room was separate, smaller, and quieter, with better lighting and ventilation. And the supervisors were friendly, tolerant observers, not the usual authoritarian foremen. Any or all of these factors may have contributed to the improved performance.

While it is obvious that improved working conditions can and probably will affect performance, I strongly feel that we cannot dismiss the importance of attention. Walking around a cube farm at pretty much any client site, one typically sees more people browsing CNN.com than people doing actual work. Would that be the case if everyone had constant attention? Of course not. Would it be good to have constant attention all the time? I don't think so. Perhaps most of the time, though, assuming the attention is of the right kind.

And it's not about preventing people from reading CNN. It's about creating an environment which accelerates productivity through collaboration and interaction.