Both the social and physical aspects of the environment have been examined as causes of work behaviors and attitudes, but recent studies concerning the effect of open plan offices have shown inconsistent results. To assess the relative contributions of organizational level and the social and physical work environment in explaining employee attitudes and perceptions of their work, 420 state government employees were surveyed about their present work environment and their expectations regarding a new work environment. All employees were to be relocated to an office building designed as an open office environment. Regression analyses indicated that social environment was superior to organizational level and the physical environmnet in explaining perceived job characteristics, involvement, trust, satisfaction, and expectations about the move. Organizational level explained additional variance in job characteristics and involvement. The physical environment was consistently related to satisfaction. These data suggest that investigations of the effects of changes in office design on employee attitudes and behaviors should include measures of the social environment and organizational level in addition to measures of the physical environment. (JAC)