The internationalization of a nation and the internationalization of a firm are clearly different. A nation is fixed in that its territory and people cannot move freely, whereas competitive factors such as capital, technology, and management are freely mobile. From this perspective, national internationalization is the process of opening domestic markets and, further, aligning national institutions and practices to international standards. Corporate internationalization, on the other hand, means that managers develop business strategies with a global perspective. This requires the vision to determine business composition in the world market. Sustaining international competitiveness at the national economic level is ultimately possible only when consistently high productivity can be maintained. The economic entities for which competitiveness is discussed are the nation, industry, and firm, respectively, and their definitions and measurement indicators differ. International competitiveness moves from the higher concept at the national and industry levels down to the lower concept at the firm level, but the simplicity of the lower concept does not constitute the higher concept. This is particularly true when outward foreign investment is actively taking place. Therefore, it is necessary to clearly specify which economic entity's concept of competitiveness is being referred to. In situations where there is a gap between national and corporate competitiveness, it is useful to distinguish competitiveness factors into location-specific factors and ownership-specific factors. Location-specific factors are advantages that a firm can enjoy by undertaking value-added activities in a particular country or location, while ownership-specific factors are formed according to a firm's internal investments and strategies. Until now, Korean firms have competed primarily through exports based on location-specific advantages, but as the economy becomes more open, they will need to secure ownership-specific advantages to maintain competitiveness.