Here is an excerpt from article co-authored by Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin in which they explain how and why companies can get America’s edge back while advancing their own interests. It appeared in Fortune magazine.

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FORTUNE – America’s feeble economy reminds us every day that our global competitiveness is in trouble. Whose fault is that? As usual in today’s political environment, most opinions are extreme. One camp holds that national competitiveness is the responsibility of policymakers, not business leaders, who need to focus on running their companies. The opposite camp says companies owe loyalty to the country that supports them, and executives who move “American jobs” overseas are “Benedict Arnold CEOs.” Both positions are deeply flawed, reflecting simplistic views of how competition and economies really work.

We offer a third perspective. Managers must run their companies well. But every firm draws on the business environment in the communities where it operates, or the “commons,” as our colleagues Gary Pisano and Willy Shih call it. Government has a profound impact on the health of the commons and must do its part to make the U.S. attractive for business. At the same time, business leaders influence the commons on which they draw. In doing so, they open up a valuable opportunity: When a firm improves the commons, it often boosts its own profitability while also advancing the prospects of other U.S.-based businesses. That means business leaders shouldn’t simply accept the business environment as a given, set by government. They can — and should — enhance the commons in ways that boost their own long-run profits.

To understand why that’s critical to America’s future, we need to be clear on what competitiveness means. The U.S. is competitive to the extent that firms operating here can compete successfully in the global economy while supporting high and rising living standards for the average American. Doing one without the other means we aren’t really competitive. A high-wage economy like the U.S. can achieve both only by being a highly productive location, one where firms can create innovative, distinctive products and produce them efficiently.

In Harvard Business School’s project on U.S. competitiveness, we and other faculty have examined how business can lead in restoring U.S. competitiveness. Our own and our colleagues’ work point to three ways.

[Here’s the first.]

Pursue productivity

First and most important, managers must run their U.S. operations well, vigorously pursuing productivity and profitability within the rules set by society. In part, this means positioning U.S.-based activities to draw on unique American strengths. For instance, La-Z-Boy has avoided head-to-head competition with low-wage Asian furniture manufacturers by emphasizing the customization and faster delivery that its U.S. location and worker skills make possible.

Contrary to recent political posturing, running U.S. operations well does not always mean staying at home. Going overseas often improves U.S. competitiveness by allowing U.S. companies to better penetrate foreign markets through better customer support, adapting products to local needs, and more efficient logistics. Our colleagues Mihir Desai, Fritz Foley, and James Hineshave found that U.S. multinationals that expand faster abroad also tend to grow faster in America. At the same time, well-run companies do bring activities back to America as costs rise overseas and managers feel offshoring’s hidden costs, such as lower foreign worker productivity, quality problems, and loss of intellectual property. When Chesapeake Bay Candle moved production from Vietnam to Maryland, for instance, it avoided 15% to 20% annual wage inflation, cut shipping costs, met the fast-delivery demands of retailers, and slashed inventory costs.

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The ideas we present here have been shaped by our work with the core faculty team of HBS’s project on U.S. competitiveness: Mihir Desai, Bill George, Robin Greenwood, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Tom Kochan, David Moss, Nitin Nohria, Gary Pisano, Bill Sahlman, David Scharfstein,Willy Shih, Dick Vietor, and Matt Weinzierl. Interpretations and any errors remain ours alone.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Michael E. Porter is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School and a leading authority on competitive strategy, the competitiveness and economic development of nations, states, and regions, and the application of competitive principles to social problems such as health care, the environment, and corporate responsibility.

Jan W. Rivkin is Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration and chair of the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. His research, course development, and teaching efforts examine the interactions across functional and product boundaries within a firm – that is, the connections that link marketing, production, logistics, finance, human resource management, and other parts of a firm.