When my last company went to an open office plan, everybody (even the CEO) had to be out in the open because the whole company moved into one big room (with a little cordoned-off area for meetings). Granted, this was because we were on the edge of folding and we moved into the one big room to save on rent. But it did produce a nice "we're all in this together" vibe because it sucked ass for everyone.

This point i don't get...in all my jobs, team leads, department managers and basically all management level employees are sitting in the same open office as everyone else. I have never been somewhere where this is not the case. Is this a predominantly American thing?