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The article examines the types of foreign-owned enterprises that contribute to U.S. national competitiveness. According to the authors, there are four varieties of companies, each doing business at varying levels of complexity and with local intellectual content, that raise competitive levels. Of the four types, assemblers and importers offer the smallest contribution to the competitive edge of host nations as they are concerned only with strategies designed to capture the domestic market for their products. Manufacturing sites add to competitiveness because more original work is done in situ. Fully integrated organizations, where products are designed, processes evolved and combined with manufacturing and vendor management, are in the forefront of advancing competitiveness. The production methods of the Matsushita corporation of Japan are examined in detail.