Ah, the MBA. The legendary, ultimate business degree that will maximize your salary, take your career to the next level, and finally win you that corner-office you’ve always dreamed of … and all for just a paltry few tens of thousands of dollars.

At least, that was the conventional wisdom on the MBA. However, over the last few years, a number of books and articles by reputable authors have called into question the value of getting an MBA in today’s business market. As enrollment in MBA programs hit ever-increasing highs, new debate on the subject is heating up.

Over at BNET, they’ve recently put together a nifty series of articles covering the current state of the MBA and its position in the business world. One of the writers, Geoffrey James, offers a contemporary take on the value of the degree in an article entitled “Five Hard Truths About the MBA”:

Hard Truth No. 1: The ROI isn’t what it used to be. Writing in a research piece for “The Academy of Management Learning and Education” several years ago, two business school professors, Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford and Christina Fong of the University of Washington, dropped this bomb on academia: “What data there are suggest that business schools are not very effective. Neither possessing an MBA degree nor grades earned in courses correlate with career success.”

The report debunked many of the traditional claims of B-school recruiters. … As Pfeffer explained to BNET, “The overall cost of education has risen so much over the past 15 years that it’s become unclear whether it makes sense to overburden yourself with expenses and loans in order to secure the possibility of a greater salary in the future.”

Hard Truth No. 2: The training has become too theoretical. It’s not just basic cost-benefit analysis that’s bringing the MBA under greater scrutiny. Some critics argue that even top business schools aren’t adequately preparing students to be effective managers.

… [Some critics have argued] that there’s too much emphasis on management theory and too little on developing practical skills. For instance, Howard Stevens, CEO of the HR Chally Group consulting firm, explains that “only a handful of academic institutions — around 45 out of more than 700 — offer significant training in sales, even though success in sales is the most important determinant of a firm’s ultimate success.”

Hard Truth No. 3: Some of the people skills needed to be a manager today can’t be taught in the business school environment. … Management is just too complex a human behavior to be effectively taught in a classroom environment, according to Ray Tsai, M.D., an MBA candidate at the Wharton School. “You could take a class titled Managing People at Work, where you discuss different theories on behavior, motivation, etc., and do reasonably well academically. But if you don’t have some significant experience working with, above, or below other people, you will not really appreciate the full extent of the material.”

Hard Truth No. 4: MBA programs propagate management fads. In 2006, an “Atlantic Monthly” article lambasted management theory, the very heart of the MBA curriculum. Authored by Matthew Stewart, the former founder of a management consulting group, “The Management Myth” poked holes in the history of management studies and made a compelling case that the attempt to turn management into a science had generated little more than a series of self-contradictory opinions. For example, he notes that all management theory tends to fall into one of two categories: rationalist (manage by the numbers) and humanist (inspire and empower), even though the two approaches result in diametrically different management behaviors.

… The incorporation of management fads into the MBA curriculum lessens the usefulness of the degree because, in practice, these pop theories often are more disruptive than helpful. “You know how it goes, the same company that did quality circles is now doing re-engineering,” complains Frank Ingari, chairman of Purkinje, a provider of practice management services to physicians. “Did they ever connect those two concepts?”

Hard Truth No. 5: The pressure to succeed inside MBA programs has weakened safeguards against cheating. The year 2006 also saw publication of a landmark study, funded by the Academy of Management Learning and Education, revealing that 56 percent of MBA candidates admitted to cheating. It turns out that MBA candidates are plagiarizing, copying from other students, and bringing prohibited materials to exams in much higher numbers than nonbusiness graduate students. The implication was clear: MBA programs were unwittingly encouraging, or at least tolerating, the kind of behavior that ultimately results in Enron or WorldCom-type scandals.

The real problem may lie in the mindset that accompanies the MBA experience, according to Linda Klebe Trevino, a professor of management and organization at the Penn State Smeal College of Business and a co-author of the report on cheating. “An MBA is often seen as a ticket to more lucrative employment, so perhaps getting the degree is more important to them than the knowledge gained along the way,” she explains. “Along the same lines, it may be a ‘bottom-line’ mentality — that performance is what matters, not how you get there.”

Read Geoffrey James’ original BNET article here. For further inforomation, we also recommend “What Executives Really Think of MBAs“, by the same author, and Jenna Miller’s “Three Things I Wish I’d Known Before Starting Grad School“, all to be found at BNET.com.