Imadec Executive Education
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The Imadec Executive Education GmbH is a business training provider in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. The company briefly gained accreditation as a for-profit
private university Private universities and private colleges are institutions of higher education, not operated, owned, or institutionally funded by governments. They may (and often do) receive from governments tax breaks, public student loans, and grant (money ...
in 2001, albeit under dubious circumstances. The accreditation was rescinded in 2006 as a result of compliance issues and persistent
diploma mill A diploma mill (also known as a degree mill) is a company or organization that claims to be a higher education institution but provides illegitimate academic degrees and diplomas for a fee. The degrees can be fabricated (made-up), falsified (fa ...
allegations. Imadec was forced into bankruptcy proceedings by debtors in 2010 but was permitted to restructure under court supervision. The company continues to operate and is currently offering negotiation and management seminars.


History

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 California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay, CSU East Bay, or CSUEB) is a public university in Hayward, California. The university is part of the 23-campus California State University system and offers 136 undergraduate and 60 post ...
(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 The Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (FIBAA) is recognised accreditation body in all German speaking countries (Germany-Switzerland-Austria), FIBAA was founded in 2002 to accredit schools of business. Since the la ...
. Also starting in 1996 the International
Gary S. Becker Gary Stanley Becker (; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of ...
Prize, a prize for scholarly excellence donated and granted by Gary Becker together with a committee of international economists and business executives, was awarded by Imadec. The partnership collapsed in August 2002. According to Jay Tontz, Dean of the CSUH Department of Business and Economics, the university decided to end the relationship because the venture had failed to turn any profit, even though the university's five other overseas MBA programs were making healthy amounts of money. The contract stipulated profit sharing as opposed to the more conventional revenue sharing; Imadec claimed it was barely breaking even but refused to either cut costs or agree to a revenue sharing arrangement. An additional problem, according to CSUH faculty, was "Imadec's failure to make timely payments" regarding salaries and expenses the company owed. According to Joksch, Imadec was canceling the contract because Kurt Leube, the partnership's academic director, had been misrepresenting his academic credentials. Leube, Joksch alleged, had been fraudulently claiming to hold a PhD in Economics that he did not in fact possess. Former Imadec faculty described Joksch's accusations as "ridiculous". Joksch had been well aware of Leube's lack of a doctorate; he had hired Leube on the strength of Leube's enthusiastic adherence to the
Austrian School The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that advocates strict adherence to methodological individualism, the concept that social phenomena result exclusively from the motivations and actions of individuals. Austrian school ...
and his apprenticeship under
Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
.


Private university

In May 1999, Joksch ran for the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
on a Freedom Party ticket. Although he did not win a seat, the political connections he established paid off when the Freedom Party gained government responsibility and cabinet positions following the October 1999 Austrian legislative election. As a part of its general program of deregulation and liberalization, the new cabinet paved the way for the establishment of
private universities Private universities and private colleges are institutions of higher education, not operated, owned, or institutionally funded by governments. They may (and often do) receive from governments tax breaks, public student loans, and grant (money ...
in Austria. Joksch had been lobbying for legislation allowing private universities for years and appears to have played a major role in convincing the cabinet to sponsor the relevant statute. 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. Imadec was accredited effective January 2001. The new university mocked its older siblings for what it saw as their antiquated teaching methods and their fatuous insistence on maintaining research libraries. Imadec enthusiastically embraced, however, the traditional material trappings of academia. The school took up residence in the ersatz Ivy League ambience of Schloss Laudon, a
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
water castle A water castle is a castle whose site is largely defended by water. It can be entirely surrounded by water-filled moats (moated castle) or natural waterbodies such as island castles in a river or offshore. The term comes from European castle st ...
in the outskirts of Vienna. Web sites, brochures, and commercials featured Christian Joksch and others wearing richly adorned academic robes and flamboyant medallion chains, a conspicuous departure from the comparatively sober comportment of most of Austria's other institutions of higher learning. Almost immediately, Imadec also began to refer to itself as an "elite" institution. 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: * Theresia Zierler, Freedom Party general secretary * Ralph Vallon, Freedom Party communications director * Gerald Mikscha, long-time personal assistant to
Jörg Haider Jörg Haider (; 26 January 1950 – 11 October 2008) was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of ...
*
Sylvia Papházy Sylvia may refer to: People *Sylvia (given name) *Sylvia (singer), American country music and country pop singer and songwriter *Sylvia Robinson, American singer, record producer, and record label executive *Sylvia Vrethammar, Swedish singer credi ...
, Freedom Party MP and alleged life partner of Joksch at the time *
Werner Amon Werner may refer to: People * Werner (name), origin of the name and people with this name as surname and given name Fictional characters * Werner (comics), a German comic book character * Werner Von Croy, a fictional character in the ''Tomb Raid ...
, MP for the
Austrian People's Party The Austrian People's Party (german: Österreichische Volkspartei , ÖVP ) is a Christian-democratic and liberal-conservative political party in Austria. Since December 2021, the party has been led provisionally by Karl Nehammer. It is currentl ...
, the Freedom Party's coalition partner at the time. Amon was awarded an MBA even though he had never completed his secondary education and was therefore technically ineligible to enroll. Amon was not just a sitting member of parliament during his time as an Imadec MBA student, he also served on the parliamentary Science Advisory Committee and held the additional side job of being Imadec's director of resource development. *
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi ( ar, سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي; born 25 June 1972) is a Libyan political figure. He is the second son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife Safia Farkash. He was a p ...
, 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 von Habsburg Karl von Habsburg (given names: ''Karl Thomas Robert Maria Franziskus Georg Bahnam''; born 11 January 1961) is an Austrian politician and the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, therefore being a claimant to the defunct Austro-Hungarian t ...
, son of
Otto von Habsburg Otto von Habsburg (german: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, hu, Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Lajos Gaetan ...
, Honorary President of Imadec at the time. Karl was known for his affable disposition but not for his scholarly accomplishment. His decade-and-counting attempts to graduate from some law school, any law school, had gained a certain notoriety in Austria. 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 accreditation expired in early 2006. 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 German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
: "Lehrgänge universitären Characters") and to award symbolic degrees to students successfully completing them. The permission appears to be have been a personal favor to Joksch from
Elisabeth Gehrer Elisabeth Gehrer (' Pokorny, born 11 May 1942) is an Austrian politician for the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). From May 1995 until January 2007, Gehrer was Federal Minister of Education, Science and Culture, at first in grand coalition governm ...
, the outgoing minister of education at the time. Under the unique and somewhat experimental statutory framework of the time, Imadec could legally claim that its degrees were "academic" degrees. 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. Ignoring the order, Joksch continued to refer to his company as a "university" for several more years, apparently with impunity. 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. By 2011, there were 75 separate "university-level" training providers in Austria, and universities were heavily lobbying the legislature to quell the flood. 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.


Illegal conferment of honorary degrees

An important part of Imadec's marketing efforts was its generosity in awarding honorary degrees and other distinctions to politicians, prominent bankers, and celebrities. Notable known recipients include: *
Siegbert Alber Siegbert Alber (27 July 1936 - 4 June 2021) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and former member of the German Bundestag. Life Alber was a member of the CDU. He was active in the youth organization Junge Union T ...
, Honorary LL.D. * Peter Blaker, Baron Blaker, Honorary Citizen *
Wim Duisenberg Willem Frederik "Wim" Duisenberg (; 9 July 1935 – 31 July 2005) was a Dutch politician and economist who served as President of the European Central Bank from 1 June 1998 until 31 October 2003. He was a member of the Labour Party (PvdA). Du ...
, Honorary DBA *
Franz Fischler Franz Fischler (born 23 September 1946) is an Austrian politician from the Christianity, Christian-Conservatism, conservative Austrian People's Party, People's Party (ÖVP). He was the European Union's Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Developm ...
, Honorary Citizen * Ernst Fuchs, Honorary Citizen *
Otto von Habsburg Otto von Habsburg (german: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, hu, Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Lajos Gaetan ...
, Honorary President *
Hans Hass Hans Hass (23 January 1919 – 16 June 2013) was an Austrian biologist and underwater diving pioneer. He was known mainly for being among the first scientists to popularise coral reefs, stingrays, octopuses and sharks. He pioneered the making of ...
, Honorary Citizen * Claus Hipp, Honorary Senator *
Alexandre Lamfalussy Alexandre, Baron Lamfalussy (; 26 April 1929 – 9 May 2015) was a Hungarian-born Belgian economist who served as President of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) from 1994 to 1997, which was the forerunner to the European Central Bank (ECB). ...
, Honorary DBA * Helmut List, Honorary Senator *
Heinrich Neisser Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...
, Honorary Citizen *
Maria Schaumayer Maria Schaumayer (7 October 1931 Graz – 28 January 2013 Vienna ) was an Austrian economist and politician ( ÖVP ). From 1990 to 1995, she was President of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. She was the first woman to hold this position. In 1996 ...
, Honorary Citizen *
Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...
, Honorary DBA * Gerhard Swarovski, Honorary Senator * Max Turnauer, Hononary Senator *
Josefina Vázquez Mota Josefina Eugenia Vázquez Mota ( o̞.se̞'fi.na'βas.ke̞s'mo̞.ta (born 20 January 1961, in Mexico City) is a businessperson and politician who was the presidential candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) for the 2012 elections. Vázque ...
, Honorary Citizen *
Franz Vranitzky Franz Vranitzky (; born 4 October 1937) is an Austrian politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), he was Chancellor of Austria from 1986 to 1997. Early life and career As the son of a foundryman, Vranitzky was born in ...
, Honorary DBA *
Andrew Young Andrew Jackson Young Jr. (born March 12, 1932) is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian L ...
, Honorary Citizen All of these honors were void and their conferments illegal. Institutions that could not award regular doctorates could not award honorary doctorates either, 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 Vicente Fox Quesada (; born 2 July 1942) is a Mexican businessman and politician who served as the 62nd president of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006. After campaigning as a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist, Fox was elec ...
. The former president of Mexico holds an honorary doctorate of law from Imadec, awarded in 2011.


Bankruptcy petition

On June 18, 2010,
bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
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

, Imadec is offering seminars in "advanced negotiations" and "C-suite management". In its sales brochures, Imadec still describes itself as an "academic institution" and refers to its instructors as "university professors" in a way that suggests, although does not claim outright, that the title is due to their being employed by Imadec. Imadec's two current instructors are in fact teachers at legitimate universities; their classes at Imadec are side jobs. Imadec "diplomas", described as "internationally recognized" in Imadec brochures, can be obtained for EUR 12,800 plus ten to sixteen days' worth of attendance. Now operating out of a mid-market office building in the working class district of
Margareten Margareten (; bar, Magredn) is the fifth district of Vienna (german: 5. Bezirk, Margareten). It is near the old town of Vienna and was established as a district in 1850, but borders changed later.


Notable alumni

*
Werner Amon Werner may refer to: People * Werner (name), origin of the name and people with this name as surname and given name Fictional characters * Werner (comics), a German comic book character * Werner Von Croy, a fictional character in the ''Tomb Raid ...
* Andreas Brandstetter * Tillmann Fuchs *
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi ( ar, سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي; born 25 June 1972) is a Libyan political figure. He is the second son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife Safia Farkash. He was a p ...
*
Karl von Habsburg Karl von Habsburg (given names: ''Karl Thomas Robert Maria Franziskus Georg Bahnam''; born 11 January 1961) is an Austrian politician and the head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, therefore being a claimant to the defunct Austro-Hungarian t ...
* Gerald Mikscha *
Sylvia Papházy Sylvia may refer to: People *Sylvia (given name) *Sylvia (singer), American country music and country pop singer and songwriter *Sylvia Robinson, American singer, record producer, and record label executive *Sylvia Vrethammar, Swedish singer credi ...
*
Karl-Heinz Strauss Karl-Heinz is a German given name, composed of Karl and Heinz but with a hyphen dash. Notable people with that name include: * Hilarios Karl-Heinz Ungerer, German Bishop * Karl-Heinz Feldkamp (born 1934), football coach and former player * Karl- ...
* Ralph Vallon * Theresia Zierler


References


External links


Imadec Executive Education GmbH
{{authority control Universities and colleges in Vienna Unaccredited institutions of higher learning