The research that I've seen supporting small in-person environments has all been carried out with low-skill workers (typically undergrad volunteers) on tasks that do not require deep critical thought or creativity. It's not at all clear that it generalizes to the sort of work that a senior technical staff member does.

I am not a researcher in the field, so its entirely possible that there is good work to support your claim, but all the research I've seen cited on HN in past discussions was crap or simply not relevant for the stated reason.