> I'm not a fan of floods of MBAs, but surely the degree serves some purpose other than class signalling. It seems like an exercise in typical engineer hubris to think is a trivial pursuit could learn in a week.
You won't find engineers saying that medical degrees are just BS.
Fact is, business degrees are thin on content. I know this because I studied engineering and went to a business school. Now of course any degree has some kind of content, but business content just has very little that would pass for being academic content. The core stuff like Porter's Five Forces and Taylorism is no different than what you'd "know" if you read some of those airport magazines now and again.
Imagine an engineering class where you just watched a Discovery show about how the Channel Tunnel was made. Yes, it's content, but nobody should be hired to build tunnels based on having seen that video of the French guy shaking hands with the British guy.
But that is how we hire executives. A guy who knows some things about the history of some industry, and can talk about it confidently.
> Suppose you take a veteran engineer heading into management, and send him/her to get an MBA. Will they come back no better for it?
They'll know something about the culture of management, which will be useful for duping someone into promoting him. Well actually I rather like the idea of having technically trained managers, so I'd cheer that on. But not because you'll know how to manage from studying management.