Spring 2027

Industrial Structure and Competitive Strategy

Industrial Structure and Competitive Strategy analyzes firm competition and industrial structure using theoretical models and case studies.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Raymond Deneckere3.2/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Raymond Deneckere

A student reported two weekly homework assignments involving reading 28-53 pages of material, each typically taking at least two hours. The final paper demanded extensive industry analysis and was considered the most challenging aspect.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Apply game theory to formulate and analyze models of imperfectly competitive markets.

  • Analyze case studies to determine major factors influencing the intensity of competition in an industry.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

ECON 301 or 311

ECON 458

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.00/5 from 33 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 2.3/5 raw quality · 3.3/5 difficulty · 12 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Raymond Deneckere

Raymond Deneckere taught a course with no exams, relying on weekly case studies and a final paper that comprised 70% of the grade. Students reported heavy weekly workloads involving significant reading and writing, with some finding the grading slow and erratic. While some valued the resume-building project, others found the lectures dry and the theoretical focus difficult to follow.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.75 GPA, 88.1% A/AB (n=42 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.75 GPA, 80.4% A/AB (n=46 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.79 GPA, 92.7% A/AB (n=41 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

RAYMOND DENECKERE is recorded teaching in Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 450

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Raymond Deneckere

Raymond Deneckere taught this course with group case studies and a group final paper, with no exams or textbook. One student found the critical thinking focus helpful for interviews, while another noted it was good for adding a university project to a resume.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2024: 3.75 GPA, 88.1% A/AB (n=42 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.75 GPA, 80.4% A/AB (n=46 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.79 GPA, 92.7% A/AB (n=41 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Raymond Deneckere

A student reported two weekly homework assignments involving reading 28-53 pages of material, each typically taking at least two hours. The final paper demanded extensive industry analysis and was considered the most challenging aspect.

Past student reviews · Raymond Deneckere

A student found Deneckere's chalkboard lectures hard to follow due to hard-to-read handwriting, and described the cases as outdated and grading as erratic and slow.

Topics

  • Entry barriers, price competition dynamics, entry/exit strategies, product differentiation, advertising, and technological change
  • Theoretical models and case studies

Skills

  • Applying game theory to model imperfectly competitive markets
  • Analyzing case studies to identify factors influencing industry competition

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
ECON 458 · Spring 2027

Industrial Structure and Competitive Strategy

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:296:022932",
    "course_id": "ECON 458",
    "course_uid": "course_e1235dcbd05a8b1ac84ba097",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "022932",
    "source_subject_id": "296",
    "title": "Industrial Structure and Competitive Strategy",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "9b4ce9835ec4eb3cee04d98ec35dcd375a36a484c459224adf49e7a56611e078",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}