Imadec was founded in 1991 as the International Management Development Consulting GmbH. Founder and director was Christian Joksch, an Austrian insurance manager and sometime lecturer. From 1991 to 1996, the company operated as a consulting business.
California State partnership In 1996, Imadec secured a partnership with the
California State University, Hayward (CSUH). Acting as an overseas business program subsidiary of the university and supervised by university personnel on location in Vienna, Imadec reinvented itself as a
for-profit business school and began offering an Executive MBA program. The program received accreditation from the
FIBAA. In fact, one of his employees was involved in drafting the statute. When the Accreditation Council established by the new act proved hesitant to accredit Imadec, Joksch's political allies were able and willing to bring considerable pressure to bear. With the heightened profile came heightened scrutiny, which Imadec did not weather well. Very soon, the institution was dogged by accusations of low standards and academic irregularities going back years. A number of politicians, political operatives, and socialites were managing to earn degrees without spending any significant amount of time in either classrooms or libraries. Notable cases include: •
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, friend of Haider's and fixture of the local party scene. The son of the Libyan dictator managed to earn an Imadec MBA in just twenty months, in spite of his busy social calendar and in spite of being fully fluent in neither English nor German. There is evidence that lecturers were falsifying at least some of his written exams on his behalf. Karl was known for his affable disposition but not for his scholarly accomplishment. Once at Imadec, Karl earned three separate master's degrees in the space of just five years, despite his increasingly demanding social obligations as the acting head, and later head, of the House of Habsburg. Karl's MBA, MLE, and LL.M. featured proudly in Imadec PR publications. Imadec became a subject of concern for the Science Advisory Committee. The general impression in the committee, two members went on record stating, was that Imadec was essentially simply selling its degrees and only barely bothered to pretend otherwise. When Imadec's accreditation came up for review in 2005, the national Accreditation Council refused renewal, citing numerous issues in unusually forceful language. The school petitioned for a renewal of its accreditation in August 2006 but was rejected again. The council once more cited issues with quality assurance, academic staff structure, and financial backing.
Pretend private university At the same time, Imadec received permission to advertise its educational programs as "university-level curricula" (
German: "Lehrgänge universitären Characters") and to award symbolic degrees to students successfully completing them. The permission appears to have been a personal favor to Joksch from
Elisabeth Gehrer, the outgoing minister of education at the time. In fact, Imadec could legally advertise its degrees as "master's" degrees even though they were distinct from actual master's degrees in several respects. Imadec made full use of the legal loopholes at its disposal and continued to award "master's" degrees for another five years. Imadec even tried to continue using the word "university" as part of its registered company name. Petitioned by the Accreditation Council, the Vienna Commercial Court ordered the company name struck from the rolls in 2007. Austria's actual universities quickly discovered that the deluge of substandard "master's" degrees pouring out of institutions such as Imadec threatened the country's credibility in the market. By 2007, consumer protection agencies were declaring themselves concerned. It had become obvious that Austria's private tertiary education sector had acquired a questionable reputation. Encumbered by the sectors's poor prestige, private universities and "university-level" training providers were experiencing financial difficulties. Imadec was repeatedly cited as one of the reasons. Parliament ended the experiment, effective 2012. •
Siegbert Alber, Honorary LL.D. •
Peter Blaker, Baron Blaker, Honorary Citizen •
Ernst Fuchs, Honorary Citizen •
Otto von Habsburg, Honorary President •
Alexandre Lamfalussy, Honorary DBA •
Helmut List, Honorary Senator •
Heinrich Neisser, Honorary Citizen and private universities could not award any honors at all. In 2005, Joksch was charged before the Administrative Court, convicted, and fined. Imadec honorary distinctions, the verdict confirmed, were worthless. Joksch ignored the verdict and continued to hand out honorary degrees, most notably to
Vicente Fox. The former president of Mexico holds an honorary doctorate of law from Imadec, awarded in 2011.
Bankruptcy petition On June 18, 2010,
bankruptcy proceedings were initiated against Imadec by one of its creditors before the Vienna Commercial Court. On August 26, 2010, the court accepted a restructuring plan that required Imadec to fully satisfy all creditors within two years' time. == Current activity ==