Spring 2027

Business Strategy

Business Strategy covers strategic management formulation and implementation at business unit and corporate levels, emphasizing unique analysis tools for companies and industries applied to business problems.

offering recorded2 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Mahka Moeen

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Hart Posen

The coursework was considered too heavy for the three-hour weekly commitment, with tests described as incredibly difficult and group projects lacking direction.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Perform an external analysis of the firm’s environment (industry, competitors, and the broader environment), and an internal analysis of the firm’s resources (capabilities, tangible and intangible assets, etc.).

  • Perform an analysis of alternative strategic positions within an industry, distinguishing between cost and differentiation strategies, with implications for building competitive advantage.

  • Analyze a firm’s resources (capabilities, tangible and intangible assets etc.) as a basis of assessing the merits of firm growth into new industries and geographies.

  • Assess and respond to different types of change in the industry environment (technological change, industry evolution, competitive threats, disruption) that may alter industry structure and the firm’s competitive advantage.

  • Analyze the benefits and challenges of alternative modes of achieving growth including: de novo growth, mergers, acquisitions, and alliances.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Graduate/professional standing or declared in graduate Business Exchange program

    • Graduate/professional standing
    • declared in graduate Business Exchange program
    take one
MHR 723 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • Graduate/professional standing
    • declared in graduate Business Exchange program

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.59 GPA, 74.2% A/AB (n=163 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.61 GPA, 84.6% A/AB (n=169 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.84 GPA, 93.8% A/AB (n=97 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

HART POSEN is recorded teaching in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MAHKA MOEEN is recorded teaching in Spring 2024, Spring 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 020Classroom Instruction0 / 450
LEC 021Classroom 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 · Hart Posen

Hart Posen taught the course as a hilarious and knowledgeable instructor, though students found the program structure ill-suited to his style.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.55 GPA, 71.5% A/AB (n=193 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.61 GPA, 83.7% A/AB (n=215 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.75 GPA, 92.5% A/AB (n=174 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Hart Posen

The coursework was considered too heavy for the three-hour weekly commitment, with tests described as incredibly difficult and group projects lacking direction.

Past student reviews · Hart Posen

Students reported hundreds of pages of weekly reading and vague requirements, noting that Posen delegated significant responsibilities to teaching assistants.

Topics

  • Strategy formulation and implementation at business unit and corporate levels
  • Tools for analysis of companies and industries
  • Growth modes including de novo growth, mergers, acquisitions, and alliances

Skills

  • Strategic management formulation and implementation
  • Development and application of analysis tools for companies and industries
  • Analysis of strategic positions and competitive advantage

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.06 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

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.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
MHR 723 · Spring 2027

Business 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": "1274:236:003138",
    "course_id": "MHR 723",
    "course_uid": "course_ac74693b044f2553161a1539",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "003138",
    "source_subject_id": "236",
    "title": "Business Strategy",
    "credits_min": 2,
    "credits_max": 2,
    "typically_offered": "Occasionally"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
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.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "690fbcd6ba92ee5c2ff7597b4123d1f6591717e15c7034d8e179d147a94d12e0",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}