Genesis of theoretical concepts of sustainable development of economic systems

Abstract

The scientific community from the middle of the 20th century investigates a question of sustainable development of social and economic systems. The term “sustainable development” for the first time appeared in foreign literature and is exposed to active criticism and also causes difficulties regarding the translation and interpretation of the concepts “stability” and “development”. Contradictions in the scientific community and the need to clarify the essence of this category caused by the socio-economic development of economic systems establish relevance of carrying out theoretical researches. The purpose of the research is to analyze the categorical mechanism and approaches to the interpretation of the term “sustainable development” in terms of the system concept, the cluster paradigm and the principles of corporate social responsibility. The novelty of the study is to complete the existing classification of sustainable development approaches (ecological and systematic, a three-tiered approach, cluster and corporate) within corporate social responsibility approach. In each of approaches features and differences of interpretation of an object of research are revealed. By results of the analysis it is established that at the present time there is no conventional definition of the term, in foreign and domestic literature there are new directions of interpretation of the concept. The literature review found that some of the contemporary works are devoted to the analysis of sustainable development in the context of the ecological, social and economic components. It is established that the ecology-system approach, the approach in terms of three dimensions, corporate approach are used to designate the norms and rules of development of social and economic systems, cluster approach and approach of corporate social responsibility are tools for implementing sustainable development. The implementation of corporate social responsibility into all business processes will increase sustainability and adaptability of an enterprise for external environmental impact with less significant costs. The concept of corporate social responsibility is suggested to be used to model the parameters of the global economic sustainability and to find solutions for the problems caused by globalization and technological progress. It has been suggested that an ecologically-oriented world outlook that includes norms and values for the conservation of natural resources and human interaction with the environment will provide a coherent perspective on the interpretation of sustainable development terminology as well as contribute to the achievement of its goals. Further researches are recommended to be focused in the field of development new and improvement of the existing methods and mechanisms of sustainable development of system of economy as a whole, as well as research on the application of quadruple bottom line (QBL) concept as part of a corporate approach to improve the efficiency of specific enterprises by identifying an effective combination of economic, social, environmental and managerial factors of economic development.

Keywords

sustainable development, concept of sustainable development, social and economic system, ecology-system approach, cluster paradigm, corporate responsibility, harmonization of interests, four-dimensional criteria concept

For citation

Balashova E.S., Sharipova S.R. Genesis of theoretical concepts of sustainable development of economic systems. Perm University Herald. Economy, 2019, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 371–387. DOI 10.17072/1994-9960-2019-3-371-387

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