Dilbertville for Dummies by Karen De Coster
The author argues that while tax law incentivized corporations to adopt cubicle layouts, the deeper cause of cubicle culture is the broader shift toward collectivist-egalitarian ideology that prioritizes groupthink and team conformity over individual privacy and autonomy. Drawing parallels to military structures, the author contends that cubicles function as management tools to suppress individuality and territoriality, forcing workers into a homogenizing "we" mentality that paradoxically contradicts stated goals of workplace diversity. The piece concludes that this arrangement benefits only managers seeking control, while actively harming both individual workers and organizational creativity.