D.S. Vakhrushev, G.A. Rodina, D.A. Terentyev, D.V. Tumanov
The development of the approaches based on the theory of systems and the institutionalism, explaining the mechanisms for ensuring the sustainability of the economic systems at various levels, is analyzed in this article. It is shown that the key contribution to the development of the system sustainability problems, beginning with work on tectology and ending with a synergetic direction was made by the representatives of the system approach. At the same time, the adequate explanation of the control mechanisms for the economic systems sustainability is objectively hampered by the difficulties in interpreting the categorical apparatus of systems and synergetic theory. Therefore, a parallel use of the other methodological approaches, in particular, the institutional theory method, seems to be a promising direction for describing the processes taking place in the economic systems in the course of their interaction with the negative factors of the external environment.