Baltic Journal of Economic Studies  

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Vol. 9 No. 5, 2023

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms 
of the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0

1 Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University, Ukraine (corresponding author)
E-mail: docentklus@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1841-2578
2 Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University, Ukraine
E-mail: serebriak@snu.edu.ua
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7025-2399
3 Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University, Ukraine
E-mail: fomenkodenys@ukr.net
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2980-450Х

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30525/2256-0742/2023-9-5-100-110

APPLICATION OF A SYSTEM-SYNERGISTIC APPROACH TO 
MANAGING THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL 
ENTERPRISES WHILE ENSURING THEIR ECONOMIC SECURITY

Yuliia Klius1, Kseniia Sieriebriak2, Denys Fomenko3

Abstract. The formation of an effective economic system on an innovative basis is one of the most important  
tasks of the current stage of socio-economic development, since the systemic interaction of all elements of 
the economic system, forming a single economic space, allows for the most effective realisation of the benefits  
of the division of labour and specialisation in innovative forms. At the same time, the ability of production and 
economic entities to maintain the ability to expand the reproduction of innovations (while maintaining the 
scale and pace of innovation reproduction) in the event of disturbing internal and external actions – innovation 
sustainability – is becoming increasingly important. This is particularly important in the formation of integrated 
associations and integral economic complexes as sustainable systems to increase the dynamics and balance  
of the proportions of the innovation reproduction process. In the context of continuity and heterogeneity 
of innovations, it is extremely important to consider their innovation sustainability from the perspective of  
a systemic approach to the management of an economic system. Purpose of the article. The scope of research 
on strategic management of regional development is quite wide, but given the current economic situation,  
the consequences of the pandemic and martial law, this issue needs even more attention, as most regions of  
Ukraine are unstable and economically unprofitable, so it is necessary to consider special levers and directions 
that will help strategically effective management of regional enterprises and ensure their economic security. 
Methodology. The methodological basis of the article is a set of methods and principles of scientific knowledge, 
general and special methods and techniques used in the study. The theoretical basis of the study is the scientific 
work of domestic and foreign scientists on sustainable development, economic security and innovation.  
The information base is based on official statistics, reports and accounting information of enterprises, resources  
and publications of the Internet, and the results of the author's own research. Practical implications. The results 
obtained and the recommendations developed form the basis for improving the strategic management of the 
sustainable development of regional enterprises while ensuring their economic security. Value/originality.  
A mechanism of strategic management of sustainable development of regional enterprises was created using  
a system-synergistic approach, which includes a system of resources, methods and tools for influencing  
innovation processes and is based on the principles of self-organisation of complex systems in the process of  
their adaptation to changes in an unstable environment and ensuring economic security, which will allow to 
coordinate the goals and directions of management of investment, operational and financial activities of regional 
enterprises to ensure their sustainable development.

Key words: sustainable development, innovation, economic security, management, enterprise.

JEL Classification: О18, О31, D81, L53, О12

1. Introduction
The task of managing the sustainable development 

of regional enterprises is to maintain optimal levels 

of sustainability, in which the costs associated with 
ensuring sustainability guarantee an acceptable 
level of efficiency of innovative projects in terms of 



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the criterion for choosing a management decision. 
For optimisation, it is advisable to use economic  
criteria, i.e., minimising the cost of maintaining 
sustainability while achieving development  
objectives. Balancing the level of efficiency and risk is 
a key task in creating and maintaining a mechanism 
for strategic management of regional development. 
The article examines a set of developed strategic and 
tactical methods for selecting innovative projects for 
implementation, determining the sequence of their 
inclusion in the investment programme, and finding 
organisational forms for implementing innovative 
projects within the limits of financial, structural and 
dynamic sustainability of the enterprise, which are 
part of the mechanism of strategic management of 
sustainable development of regional enterprises.

The resource base for the sustainable development 
of regional enterprises is the aggregate potential of 
industrial enterprises. Development at any level of 
the economy is based on the availability and use of 
potential, which on the one hand determines the 
opportunities for development, and on the other  
hand, through development, the potential of the  
business entity grows and its economic security 
is ensured. Functioning is a source of resources in 
development that creates opportunities that are 
realised in the process of sustainable development.  
It is the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of 
the economic potential of an enterprise, formed in  
order to ensure its economic security, that determine 
both the direction of innovative development of an 
enterprise and the peculiarities of its management. 
Development means using potential in such a way 
as to ensure its transition to a qualitatively and/or 
quantitatively different, higher level; in the process 
of development, the economic potential itself is 
"developed". For the successful implementation 
of regional sustainable development strategies,  
enterprises need to increase their asset potential 
(through efficient production activities) and ensure 
the sustainability of their financial position in order  
to prevent bankruptcy and attract new resources from 
the external environment (efficient financial activities, 
use of financial management mechanisms).

2. Clarification of the Concept of Innovation 
Sustainability of Regional Enterprises

In an innovative economy, there is a qualitative  
shift in the economic system in the course of 
continuous change, which requires a clarification of 
existing approaches to understanding the "innovative 
sustainability of a company".

The transition to an innovative development model 
is a twofold process. On the one hand, it opens 
new opportunities to achieve goals determined by 
technological capabilities, because, according to  

S. Lem, "technology is the way to achieve the goals  
set by society, including those that no one had in  
mind when starting a business, due to the state 
of knowledge and social efficiency" (Putsenteilo, 
Zavytii, 2017). On the other hand, the innovative  
development model requires new forms and methods 
of management. According to C. R. McConnell and 
S. L. Brew, "the industrialised countries of the world 
are distinguished mainly by two features: the form of 
ownership of the means of production and the way in 
which economic activity is coordinated and managed" 
(Schendel, Hatter, 1972).

The innovative sustainability of an economic  
system, as a complex property, has a double 
affiliation: on the one hand it acts as an element of the  
sustainability of economic systems, on the other  
hand it is part of the innovation management system.  
And it has the qualities characteristic of these  
systems: the ability to perform the specified  
production and economic functions (as 
a result of effective implementation of innovations) 
and to maintain its basic characteristics (the level of  
innovation of the development of the production 
potential and the level of innovation activity), to 
act as a tool for increasing the positive effect of  
innovation activity by creating conditions for the  
growth of innovation of the production potential, 
receptivity to innovation and innovation activity. 
The importance of the latter quality of the economic 
system is growing in the context of uneven innovation 
development and requires the development of new 
approaches to the study of innovation sustainability  
of economic systems and the management of  
innovation activity of economic systems.

Systems analysis is based on the principle of 
systemicity, while synergetics is based on the  
principle of development. These two principles 
are complementary and even form a unity, which 
is expressed in the fact that synergetics is based on 
the methodology and theoretical conclusions of  
systemic research. However, the methodology  
of the synergetic approach also uses tools that  
allow for a more complete study of complex non-
equilibrium systems, including modern economic 
complexes. These tools can also be used to study the 
complex properties of an economic system, which  
are themselves a set of interrelated elements, such  
as its sustainability.

Today, industrialised countries are developing an 
innovation system characterised by the following 
features. Firstly, a research environment that 
has incentives to cooperate with the business  
environment; secondly, a competitive business 
environment that has incentives to innovate and the 
ability to adapt knowledge; thirdly, the existence 
of a mechanism of interaction between these two 
environments that ensures knowledge transfer and 



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transformation of knowledge into competitive tech-
nologies (Zhavoronkova, Zhavoronkov, 2010).

Thus, in relation to the study of the sustainability 
of an economic system in the context of innovation, 
it is possible to discuss, on the one hand, the 
complementarity of the systemic approach with the 
synergistic approach within the framework of the 
system-synergistic approach and, on the other hand,  
the independent functioning of the synergistic 
approach, which have their own scope for solving 
specific problems.

The duality of the systemic characteristic of the 
innovative sustainability of economic systems has 
necessitated the use of the tools of the systemic  
approach in the formation of integrated management  
in the face of disturbing influences. With this aim, 
the study of sustainability of economic systems 
in the framework of managing their innovation 
activities is carried out in the following areas  
of analysis:
– Systemic-element analysis addresses the inquiry  
into the constituent elements contributing to the 
stability of an economic system and their influence  
on shaping its overall level;
– systemic-structural analysis reveals the internal 
organisation of the stability of an economic system, 
describing how its elements interact during the  
process of innovative activities;
– systemic-functional analysis illustrates the  
functions performed by the stability of an economic 
system and the elements shaping it in the management 
of innovative activities;
– systemic-communication analysis identifies the 
communication links within the structure of the 
stability of an economic system, as well as its  
interactions in exchanging information with other 
systems horizontally and vertically;
– systemic-integral analysis allows determining  
when a simple aggregation of individual elements 
becomes a holistic system, demonstrating the 
mechanisms, factors of preservation, improvement,  
and development of innovative stability in the  
economic system within the management of its 
innovative activities;
– systemic-historical analysis addresses the question  
of how the comprehensive property of innovative 
stability in an economic system is formed, the 
developmental stages it undergoes, and its historical 
prospects.

Regarding the systematic study of the concept 
of sustainability of an economic system, it should 
be noted that one of the model concepts of an  
economic system as an economic system only 
distinguishes financial, production, technical, 
organisational and social components of the system's 
sustainability. Such a division of economic systems 
does not seem entirely correct as it does not reflect  

the interaction of sustainability components and 
represents only one level of its elements.

The authors suggest a different structure of the 
elements of sustainable development, which is  
related to the allocation of its elements based  
on the quality of the elements of the economic  
system itself, since they determine its ability to  
function in different conditions.

For the purposes of the study, the following  
elements were identified:

The project block is the company's business area  
and its results in the form of products and services.

The functional block is the operator of the 
transformation of resources, organisational structure 
and management, products and services in the course 
of labour activity of the company's employees at all 
stages of product movement, production, sales and 
consumption.

The resource block is a set of material and  
technical, labour, information and financial resources.

The organisational block includes the organisational 
structure, process technology for all functions and 
projects, and organisational culture.

The management block is the general management  
of the enterprise, the management system. The  
elements are grouped into blocks (Figure 1).

Consideration of the sustainability of the economic 
system from the point of view of systemic-element 
analysis, based on the definition of the structure of 
the system itself, allows to identify the following 
components (Figure 1):

The sustainability of resource provision  
characterises the quality and timeliness of resource 
flows in the process of innovation implementation 
(resource sustainability). This sustainability in turn 
consists of the elements of component sustainability, 
which are distinguished according to the internal 
structure of each type of resource. For this purpose,  
it is suggested to highlight the sustainability of  
feedback channels because of their particular  
importance in providing information on the 
unfavourable decline in the sustainability of  
individual elements, their blocks and the economic 
system as a whole.

In this regard, the process of globalisation of  
analytical activities in the field of studying these 
innovative projects becomes relevant in the context of 
increasing the innovative sustainability of economic 
systems. The non-transparency, unreliability and 
untimeliness of obtaining information on innovation 
processes, which has developed in the form of 
organisation of the innovation process in the domestic 
environment, leads to a decrease in the efficiency of 
innovation activities and innovative sustainability 
of economic systems, and in some cases to the  
realisation of innovative industrial risks. This implies 
the search for new forms of innovation management 



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by reducing uncertainty in the implementation 
of innovations, which would increase the level of 
sustainability of innovation. The paper proposes the  
use of a new paradigm of doing business which, in 
contrast to the prevailing approaches, provides for 
a more flexible intellectual property policy, defined  
by its ideologist G. Chesborough as "open innovation":
– Organisational unit sustainability illustrates the 
quality of the organisational structure and techno-
logical processes in the context of innovative changes 
(organisational and technological sustainability);
– sustainability of the system's functioning reflects  
the quality of the processes of transformation of 
resources, organisational structure and management 
at all stages of innovation activity (functional and 
structural sustainability);
– management sustainability determines the ability  
of the management system to maintain its functions 
in the process of dynamics of the internal and  
external environment, including flexibility and 
adaptability of the management system, complexity, 
innovation, balance, survivability (including the  
ability to create reserves) and alternatives, efficiency;
– sustainability of the project unit shows the quality  
of the processes of organising, selecting and 
implementing innovative projects, which are used 
to carry out the system's innovative activities, as 
well as the ability to maintain the degree of project  
efficiency during its implementation (project 
sustainability). This approach in the national context 
requires institutional and organisational design.

Indeed, as noted in the works of authors who 
have studied the current development of complex  
production and economic facilities in the  
domestic environment, the complexity of innovation 
is currently complicated by the presence of two 
constraints: time and resource. Acceleration of the pace 

of global economic development based on innovation 
and shortening of innovation cycles require, in order  
to achieve efficiency of development of economic 
systems, an increase in the speed of implementation of 
innovation activities, making the innovation process 
continuous, reducing the time for preparation and 
use of innovations by overlapping innovation cycles. 
In this respect, the starting time of one cycle does 
not coincide with the final stage of the previous one, 
and the cycles are implemented in parallel or with 
a small time lag. Nevertheless, at the same time there is  
a need for comprehensive and elaborate implemen-
tation of innovation, which requires a large number 
of resources for effective management of innovation 
activities of economic systems. Under these  
conditions, innovation activity in Ukraine is realised 
through the implementation of ready-made innovation 
projects, which are assembled into innovation  
packages by the enterprises themselves in order  
to save money. In this regard, the innovative  
sustainability of economic systems is primarily  
related to the ability to manage by selecting  
projects that increase its level and thus lead to an 
increase in the efficiency of innovation. Hence, in 
this study, innovation activity is considered as a  
continuous process of evaluation, selection and 
implementation of innovative projects by different 
economic systems.

3. Sustainability Research from  
a Systemic-Structural Analysis Perspective

Studies of sustainability from the perspective of 
systemic-structural analysis have shown that the  
quality of development of the elements of an  
economic system is determined, first of all, by the  
nature of changes in the components of its production 

Economic system sustainability

Management system 
sustainability

Resource provision 
sustainability

Project block 
sustainability

Organisational unit 
sustainability

Operational 
sustainability

Technological 
sustainability

Organisational 
resilience

Structural 
stability

Functional 
stability

Figure 1. Elements of economic system sustainability 

Source: clarified by the authors



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potential and their interaction in the process of 
innovative modernisation.

This means that the basis for determining the 
innovative efficiency of economic systems and their 
innovative sustainability is the analysis of the quality  
of changes in the components of the production 
potential in the process of their interaction arising 
in the course of innovative modernisation. The 
sustainability of these components from the point 
of view of innovative processes of the economic 
system is determined by the quality and timeliness 
of resource flows necessary for innovative activity 
(resource sustainability) and the ability of the 
organisational structure and all technological  
processes to change in accordance with innovative 
requirements (organisational and technological 
sustainability) without reducing the existing  
parameters of innovative development.

These three elements of resilience interact in 
the process of innovation to form the functional  
resilience of the system.

It should be emphasised once again that the 
sustainability of an economic system is a complex 
structure of interconnected and interacting elements, 
changes in each of which affect its overall level,  
which requires the formation of an effective system 
of innovation management based on the principles 
of systematicity of existing influences. The schematic 

connection of the elements within the structure of 
innovation sustainability of the economic system 
is shown in Figure 2. It is particularly worth noting  
that all elements interact with each other through 
feedback and the changing elements influence 
each other, which determines the overall state of  
innovation sustainability of the economic system. 
On the other hand, sustainability itself, represented 
by a set of interrelated elements, is a reflection  
of the quality of the process of managing the 
transformation of the economic system in the course  
of implementing innovation activities.

Transformation processes based on innovations 
that change the sustainability of the economic system 
according to the specifics of the new conditions  
create its new quality. Since transformation is an  
object-subject process, on the one hand it takes 
place according to objective laws, and on the other 
hand it is initiated and regulated by subjects in order 
to accelerate it and give it a certain direction. The 
study presents the mechanism of its influence on the 
structure and functions of innovation sustainability. 
The characteristics of this mechanism form the basis 
of the management system of innovation activity 
of economic systems. According to the researchers,  
in the process of innovation, the economic system,  
with the accumulation of changes, enters the 
transformational development. It includes a stage of 

Economic system sustainability

Resource sustainability

Organisational 
sustainability

Technological 
sustainability

Structural stability Functional stability

Project sustainability

Innovative sustainability of the economic system

M
an

ag
em

en
t s

ys
te

m
 su

sta
in

ab
ili

ty
Innovative changes (innovation project) 

Figure 2. Scheme of interconnections of elements of the structure  
of innovation sustainability of the economic system

Source: developed by the authors



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quantitative and qualitative changes in the system 
(where its stability is maintained) and a stage of  
system recovery (it is associated with qualitative  
changes, with a violation of stability and can end  
either with the establishment of a new system or  
with its collapse). The preservation of sustainability  
at the first stage is due to the presence of a certain  
quality of the management system, and the probability 
of system collapse at the next stage is due to the 
lack of this quality for the system. This problem of 
using sustainability as a tool to improve the quality 
of management of innovative transformation and  
change processes and the efficiency of innovation 
activity leads to the need to consider the sustainability 
structure of the economic system when introducing 
innovations (Figure 3).

Figure 3 shows that organisational, resource and 
technological sustainability are elements of the basic 
transformations level, which is the beginning of the 
transformation process. According to the definition, 
transformation is the process of replacing an object  
with a similar one that is derived from the first one 
when modified according to certain rules. At this 
stage of change in the elements of sustainability,  
a new quality is created as a result of the development 
of the economic system based on innovations, which 
will allow innovative sustainability to be maintained 
in the changed conditions. This is initially achieved 
through individual improvements to the elements of 
the economic system, while maintaining the existing 
structures and mechanisms of their interaction, 
which, as the changes accumulate, require further 

transformations at a higher level. In other words,  
it is at this level that the innovative potential of the 
economic system is maintained.

It should also be noted that all processes of  
changing the structure of systems and their elements 
are accompanied by changes in entropy, so their  
analysis will be incomplete without studying the 
dynamics of entropy at each stage of transformation.  
At this stage, in the absence of a sharp increase in 
the entropy of the system, the level of its innovation 
sustainability can be maintained due to the stability  
of the elements of the transformation level.  
However, as the entropy of the system increases,  
the role of higher-level sustainability elements,  
which represent the boundary between the two 
stages of transformation, increases. Therefore,  
functional and structural sustainability, which  
change in the process of qualitative transformation 
of interactions and interdependencies of elements of 
the economic system, depend on the timeliness and 
efficiency of system change through management 
interventions and are elements of sustainability at  
the system transformation level.

This stage of changing the sustainability of the  
system is more complex, as it largely depends on the 
balance of changes in the elements of the economic 
system, their readiness, the speed of their course and 
the availability of the necessary resources for their 
implementation, and will allow to determine the 
effectiveness of the innovation management system  
at this level. All these parameters depend on how 
accurately the innovation project is chosen, taking 

Management system sustainability

Economic system sustainability

Project sustainability (latent)
Innovation planning level

Resource sustainability

Organisational sustainability

Technological sustainability

Basic transformation level

Structural stability

Functional stability
Level of systemic 

transformation

Sustainability of the economic system 
after project implementation

Level of implementation and 
evaluation of the transformation

Figure 3. Structure of levels of sustainability of the economic system  
in managing the process of implementation of innovative projects



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into account the specifics of the economic system, 
and whether its management system can organise 
its implementation with a given result in the existing 
conditions.

The peculiarity of project sustainability is that it,  
being an element of the innovation planning level, is 
formed at the previous level (resource transformation) 
and exists in a latent form, practically not manifesting 
itself during the transformation, but is assessed at 
the next two levels through the sustainability of the  
relevant elements. This allows to determine how 
the project in the process of implementation affects 
the sustainability of the economic system, which 
management tools are most effective at different  
stages, how sustainability changes when external 
conditions for innovation change, but does not give 
a clear picture of the effectiveness of the project itself. 
It is necessary to analyse the change in sustainability 
as a result of the project implementation at the stage 
of implementation and control, so this element of 
sustainability is determined at two levels: planning 
innovations and implementing transformations and 
evaluation, and can be one of the criteria for the 
effectiveness of managing the innovation activities 
of economic systems. Therefore, a comprehensive 
assessment of the project's impact on the sustainability 
of the economic system in the process of managing 
its innovation activities is the main stage of selecting 
innovative projects.

4. Study of Economic System  
Sustainability from the Perspective  
of a System-Synergistic Approach

Studying the sustainability of an economic system  
from the perspective of a system-synergistic approach 
requires complementing its research with a systemic-
functional analysis to make the management system 
constructive. According to the definition of the 
sustainability of an economic system, its functions 

are clearly manifested in the event of any changes 
in the development of the system. Since the system 
is exposed to various perturbing influences during 
the implementation of innovations, the study of 
the characteristics of sustainability is an important  
analytical tool in this case. For this purpose, it is 
necessary to refer once again to its dual nature,  
which is manifested in the conditions of innovative 
development, since this determines the peculiarities  
of the functions of sustainability of economic  
systems in innovative processes. Innovative 
sustainability should create the basis for the  
transition of the economic system to new stages 
of development without reducing the quality of 
the functions performed by the system, i.e., the  
effectiveness of innovation. As an object of the 
management system, sustainability is intended to  
ensure the preservation of the pace of innovation 
activity of the economic system, to return it to this 
pace after disturbing actions. In other words, the 
sustainability of the economic system in carrying  
out innovation activities is one of the tools for 
improving its efficiency. Since, in most cases,  
economic systems carry out innovation activities 
through the implementation of innovative projects,  
it is advisable to consider the sustainability functions  
at each stage of project implementation (Table 1).

After determining the specifics of the project and  
its feasibility in a given economic system, the ways  
and tools for the most effective project implemen- 
tation are selected, taking into account possible risks 
(based on the analysis of the system's strengths and 
weaknesses and the results of a forecast assessment  
of the external environment).

In addition, on the basis of the results of the 
assessment algorithms of alternative solutions to  
project bottlenecks are developed and necessary 
and sufficient reserves are created (such a reserve is 
survivability – the level of stability at the bifurcation 
point of innovation development), at this stage the 

Table 1
Sustainable development functions at different stages of innovation projects

Stage name Resistance functions
1. Decision to implement an 
innovation

Determination of the system's readiness for innovation and determination of the boundaries of 
innovation impact

2. Analysis of an innovative project Selection of the project based on the assessment of its characteristics (maximum risk values) and 
analysis of the state of the economic system (minimum acceptable level of sustainability)

3. Analysis of the external environment Assessment of the impacts of possible impacts of concern
4. Development of alternative solutions 
for the project

Identification of optimal alternative solutions, creation of a unique sustainable development 
management system

5. Project implementation Preservation of the system's reactivity function during the implementation of an innovative 
project

6. Changes in the components of 
production potential

Maintenance of balance and coherence (in case of changes in the structure) of the economic 
system during the implementation of an innovation project

7. Evaluation of project 
implementation results Ensuring the security and efficiency of the economic system, building readiness for new projects



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project sustainability of the economic system is 
formed and the proactive character of innovation 
management is formed. After the project is selected, 
the process of innovative changes begins from its  
first stages with the components of production  
potential (resource, organisational and technological 
blocks) and their interaction in the process  
of functioning. System sustainability is manifested 
here through the preservation of the reactivity 
property in the process of innovative change, in 
which all elements of the economic system (changing 
and interacting) perform their innovative functions  
while maintaining the efficiency of the innovation 
process. In this case, the timely adoption and 
implementation of optimal, accurate and targeted 
decisions allow maintaining the state of safety in  
the implementation of disturbances – this is the  
stage of realisation of the flexibility of the  
management system (one of the parameters of 
its effectiveness in innovative conditions), which 
then, after the accumulation of changes, leads to  
adaptation, to new conditions and the formation  
of a new quality of the management system itself.  
At this stage of the economic system the degree  
of its equilibrium and the state of functional viability 
as the basic level of sustainability of the economic  
system becomes decisive for the effectiveness of 
innovative changes.

The changes in the economic system described  
above require a transformation of the structure in  
order to maintain the integrity and efficiency of 
innovation activities. In this case, the impact on 
the structure should be made taking into account 
its manageability (susceptibility to managerial 
influences of an innovative nature) and permeability 
to impulse influences (the degree of this permeability  
characterises the basic level of stability of the system 
structure or structural resilience), which will allow 
systemic modification of the economic structure 
of the system without losing its innovative aspects.  
The more precise and early the selection of the  
elements and links to be transformed in the 
process of innovative development, and the tools 
for its implementation, the more balanced and  
comprehensive the management will be, the more 
consistent the innovative changes will be, and the 
higher the final impact of the innovation. At the  
same time, the innovation impulse has both positive 
(change in the quality of the system) and negative 
effects on the system (increased risks, decreased 
efficiency), so the management task is to form a "filter" 
to eliminate the negative effects of the innovation risk 
management impulse. It seems expedient to use for 
further research the provision that when studying 
the problem of sustainability (the basic level), the  
centre of gravity should be shifted from general 
sustainability to functional and structural sustainability.

In strategic terms, the sustainability of an economic 
system is resilience – the ability to maintain the rate of 
change of innovation indicators (innovation activity, 
innovative development of production potential and 
innovation susceptibility) under the influence of 
disturbing actions, which is ensured by the efficiency 
and safety of the management of the innovation  
activity of the economic system and creates  
conditions for further innovative development. 
The effectiveness of the management system of an  
economic system in implementing innovations 
depends largely on the reliability of information  
about the system itself (its state, including  
sustainability, viability, limitations, potential, 
characteristics), the innovation project (its 
requirements, planned outcome, characteristics, 
risks) and the external environment. The creation 
of a sustainability management system requires  
knowledge of the communication relationships 
in the structure of the economic system, as well 
as its interrelationships in terms of information  
exchange with other systems horizontally and  
vertically, i.e., the implementation of the principle 
of systematicity in management. In this respect,  
the systemic-communication analysis of sustainability 
is used.

The process of organising the interrelationships 
between different elements of the sustainability 
of the economic system has been described in 
detail in the course of the system-structural and 
systemic-functional analysis. It should be noted that  
depending on the direction of changes (direct or 
reverse) in the communication process, elements  
of sustainability can be identified that determine the  
level and quality of other elements. Experience has  
shown that these are the elements of primary 
sustainability. In addition, there are elements of 
secondary sustainability which, if they change in the 
process of innovation, then influence the primary 
elements.

The first include the elements of resource, 
organisational and technological sustainability (in 
relation to each other, they can be both primary and 
secondary, depending on the nature of the innovative 
changes). Other elements can be both primary and 
secondary, depending on the choice of baseline for 
comparison.

Within this approach, it is necessary to consider  
the links and interactions between the sustainability  
of the economic system and its other systemic 
properties. A property is understood as an aspect  
of an object that makes it different from or similar  
to other objects; a characteristic is something that 
manifests itself in interaction with other objects; 
a feature is something that reflects some properties 
of a system. All system properties are interrelated. 
In fact, the property of system stability exists as long 



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as the system itself exists and the relationships and 
connections between its elements are maintained, 
which determines the degree of stability that the  
system possesses. On the other hand, through  
resilience, a system can exist and retain the property  
of efficiency as it evolves under different conditions.  
But as these connections change the elements of the 
system, the relations and connections between them, 
according to the emergence property, the level of 
sustainability of the economic system also changes.

When considering the relationship between  
system stability and organisation, it should be noted 
that the latter is determined by the structure and  
quality of the elements of which it is composed.  
During the system analysis, the study found that 
the elements and the structure of their interrelati-
onships have a certain degree of stability, which in 
a dynamic environment allows the system not only to 
maintain organisation (a certain degree of structure) 
and efficiency (as a result of functionality), but also  
to bring them to a new level. However, it is the  
degree of organisation, the structural features and 
the quality of functionality that determine the  
sustainability of an economic system.

In addition, an important analysis of sustainability 
is the existence of system behaviour (the process of 
purposeful change in the state of the system over  
time). It is primarily related to the environment, 
including other systems with which it comes into 
contact or has certain relationships. In the process  
of realising this property, the sustainability of an 
economic system can either increase or decrease, 
depending on the nature of the changes implemented 
by the system and the degree of their compliance  
with the requirements of the external environment.  
That is, depending on the degree of congruence  
between the system's expectations of the external 
environment and its state and its readiness for such 
a discrepancy (manifestation of resilience), the 
efficiency of its activities will increase or decrease.  
In contrast to management, when a change in the 
state of the system is achieved through external 
influences on the object of management, the behaviour 
is realised exclusively by the system itself on the  
basis of its own goals, i.e., to sustainability, the  
system itself must have an internal desire for it, so 
that increasing sustainability becomes a priority 
when choosing the system's behaviour, behavioural  
attitude (behavioural readiness to act in a certain 
way) when implementing its continuous innovative 
development.

The behaviour of a system is also determined  
by the nature of its response to external influences.  
At the same time, sustainability itself is a  
fundamental property of systems that determines  
the life expectancy of the system. Simple systems  
have passive forms of resilience: strength, balance, 

regulation, homeostasis, and they are mostly (except 
for strength) determined by their behaviour. And  
for complex systems, active forms are crucial:  
reliability, resilience and adaptability, and the 
defining form of sustainability of complex systems is  
mainly structural. All these internal qualities of a  
system are of a similar nature to the quality 
of sustainability. They differ in the level of  
fundamentality, with resilience being the highest. By 
successively moving from one state to another, the 
system achieves basic stability after reaching a certain 
level of viability. Almost all systems strive to achieve 
a state of survivability, most are stable, and only a few  
can achieve viability. However, the peculiarity of  
modern development is its nonlinearity and 
synchronisation of processes in the course of  
innovative development, which leads to the 
simultaneous pursuit of sustainability and efficiency. 
In addition, while reliability implies the ability to 
maintain the structure of systems despite the death  
of its individual elements, the destruction of links 
due to their replacement or duplication, sustainability 
implies the availability of mechanisms to counteract 
environmental factors and self-regeneration.

This means that the state of resilience implies that  
the system is prepared for possible negative impacts 
to the greatest extent compared to reliability and 
resilience. However, it is limited to the reserves that  
were built in when this state was established and  
requires constant support from the management  
system. If the conditions and/or the duration of the 
effects of disruptive actions change, the resilience  
of the system may decrease. In this case, its  
restoration depends on the reactive capabilities of 
the economic system triggered by the management 
processes; the faster the realisation of the reactive 
capabilities of sustainability, the higher the efficiency 
of the management system for the innovative activity 
of economic systems. Thus, in the event of prolonged 
perturbations, the resilience of the system may 
decrease to the minimum acceptable level at which 
the system realises the ability to actively overcome 
and reduce the harmful qualities of the perturbations, 
which is characterised as survivability. That is, the 
quality of resilience is necessary for an economic 
system to maintain its existence under the influence 
of disturbances and to initiate the system's reactive 
capabilities to restore sustainability in the light of 
changed conditions in the form of effective management. 
This means that the quality of resilience of economic 
systems is the basis for restoring sustainability in the 
course of their innovation activity. In the course of 
the system-structural analysis, the authors describe 
in detail the mechanism of interaction and organisation 
of the elements of economic system sustainability in 
the process of innovation activity in the formation of  
the innovative sustainability of the economic system.



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5. Provision of Economic Security  
of the Region's Enterprises  
for their Sustainable Development

The main factors ensuring the economic security 
of a given territory (state, region) are traditionally 
considered to be the military potential of the territory, 
an effective domestic policy aimed at ensuring 
competitiveness and strategic development, as well 
as the existing mechanism of stakeholder relations 
based on the basic principles of legality, honesty  
and transparency. The growing interest in the issue  
of ensuring the economic security of individual 
territories has generated a significant number of 
studies in which scholars and practitioners examine 
the conceptual framework of this economic category, 
explore various aspects of quantitative and qualitative 
assessment, monitoring and management to reduce  
the impact of destabilising factors.

With regard to regional development, the authors 
propose to understand economic security as the 
sustainable functioning of the entire economic system, 
capable of timely identification, systematisation and 
elimination of destabilising factors of development,  
as well as the development of a set of preventive 
measures to reduce the consequences of various types 
of threats. In order to create an effective mechanism  
for ensuring the economic security of regional 
enterprises, it is necessary to provide, within the 
framework of their socio-economic and spatial 
development strategies, a set of tools aimed at  
mobilising the region's internal resources and 
coordinating priority development actions through 
the introduction of project management methods  
and the need to improve the existing system for 
monitoring external and internal threats.

The core of the mechanism of economic security 
of a region is the regional economic system, which 
integrates the qualitative state of various industries 
and spheres of activity (production, social, resource, 
territorial), which involves systematisation of a set of 
interrelated factors in order to achieve regional and 
national strategic priorities.

In this case, special attention should also be paid 
to the economic security of individual business  
structures, the functioning of which determines the 
achievement of the forecast values of the region's 
economic security indicators, so in the current  
economic environment, business support measures 
should be developed, including through the 
development of the institution of consulting  
services. In general, however, it can be said that  
threats to the economic security of regions cause  
threats to the economic security of the state.

Ensuring the economic security of the region is 
a qualitative state of the entire economic system,  
which is characterised by the following:

– Mobilisation of resource potential to counter  
threats of different nature and strength, both internal 
and external;
– prompt adjustment of the current development 
strategy due to changes in government policy;
– timely monitoring of threats to the main systemic 
sectors of the region's economy;
– opportunities to reduce the consequences of  
threats and the scale of their manifestation with  
minimal time intervals;
– availability of conditions for active reproduction 
processes and efficient use of tax, production,  
financial, investment, innovation and digital potential.

The main objects of economic security in the 
region are the population and the territory within the 
administrative boundaries. To develop effective tools 
to ensure economic security, it is necessary, first of  
all, to identify the types of threats (destabilising  
factors), conduct a detailed analysis of them in order 
to classify them into potential and real ones, and  
develop a set of preventive measures to eliminate them.

6. Conclusions
In general, the study of sustainability from the  

point of view of system-synergistic and structural 
approaches has led to the conclusion that this  
concept is a complex characteristic of an economic 
system, which in the context of innovation activity 
acquires new features, creating the need to find new 
tools to achieve it by reducing the uncertainty of 
innovative development in an unstable environment. 
The study has shown that the basic sustainability  
of an economic system becomes the basis for the 
effective implementation of innovative activities 
of economic systems in modern conditions. The 
application of the systemic approach allows to  
consider the innovative sustainability of the  
economic system in terms of the totality of its 
components, connections and relationships,  
including relationships between systems. However,  
not all modern processes and phenomena can be 
explained in terms of the systems approach and 
areas of systems analysis (for example, the processes 
of transformation in the sustainability system of 
a complex organized economic system, the formation 
of sustainability in the development of non- 
equilibrium systems, sustainability management  
in the interaction of systems of different levels). Thus, 
to study the problems of improving the efficiency 
of managing the innovation activities of economic 
systems, systems analysis is complemented by 
a synergistic and structural approach. The study of 
the innovation sustainability of economic systems is  
based on these methodological positions. The final  
state of sustainability is also influenced by external 
factors, which are determined by the requirements  



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of legislation, the general level of sustainability of  
similar systems, the sustainability of integrated  
systems of a higher level, the territorial location of 
technologically related systems, and development 
conditions. The latter determine the peculiarities of  

the sustainability of economic systems in modern 
conditions and require them, together with the pre-
servation of systemic qualities, to maintain the quality 
and speed of change of innovative characteristics in the 
process of development in an unstable environment.

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Received on: 12th of October, 2023
Accepted on: 25th of November, 2023
Published on: 28th of December, 2023