Kateryna Diachenko — How Economic Security Became a Strategic Resource for Business and Education

- Samira Smith

By 2024, economic resilience is increasingly viewed not as an external condition but as the outcome of deliberate managerial decisions. For businesses and educational systems alike, stability is shaped through structured work with risk, resources, and financial flows. Within this framework, economic security has moved beyond a control function and established itself as a practical management instrument influencing strategy, investment decisions, and long-term organizational viability.

It is within this context that the professional contribution of Kateryna Diachenko, an economist, researcher, and associate professor, has taken shape. Over more than a decade, her academic and applied work has influenced enterprise resilience assessment, advanced methodological approaches in economic security, and contributed to the training of specialists for business and higher education.

Economic Security as a Managed System, Not a Formal Indicator

For a long time, one of the key challenges in the field was a fragmented understanding of economic security: it was perceived either as a set of disparate indicators or as a reaction to already materialized threats. In her research, Kateryna Diachenko proposed a different approach—treating economic security as a coherent, manageable system embedded within the financial and production processes of an enterprise.

Within interuniversity research projects funded by the State Budget of Ukraine, she carried out a body of work aimed at developing an applied methodological foundation for economic security, primarily for construction enterprises—a sector characterized by high sensitivity to macroeconomic and industry-specific risks.

As a result:

• functional components of enterprise economic security were identified, and their interrelation with external threats and internal factors was substantiated;

• an approach to defining the hierarchy and interaction of functional components was developed;

• methodological approaches to assessing the level of economic security were proposed, taking into account the specifics of financial formation in the construction sector;

• the key role of the financial functional component was substantiated as the most sensitive to changes in the external and internal environment.

This approach enabled a transition from descriptive diagnostics to a managed model of economic resilience, applicable in real economic practice.

From Scientific Models to Practical Managerial Decisions

A fundamentally important element of Kateryna Diachenko’s sectoral contribution was the implementation of the developed methodologies in enterprise operations, rather than their existence exclusively within the academic domain.

The proposed approaches were applied in the activities of a number of construction-sector companies:

• at UKRGORSTROY HOLDING LLC (Kyiv) — to optimize the structure of functional components of the economic security system, analyze their interaction, and assess the impact of external and internal factors;

• at Zhilstroy-2 PJSC (Kharkiv) — to implement a methodological approach to assessing the financial component of economic security and to improve organizational and economic support for managing enterprise resilience;

• at Spagiya Asset Management Company LLC (Kharkiv) — to model the financial component of economic security, taking into account the specifics of financial organization within construction enterprises.

For businesses, this represented a shift from intuitive managerial decision-making to structured risk analysis integrated into strategic and financial planning.

Analytical Framework

A methodological approach to assessing the financial component of economic security was developed, taking into account the systemic interaction of indicators at the financial level of economic security in construction enterprises, including short- and long-term solvency, financial efficiency, and advances received from customers.

This approach demonstrates the relationship between customer-advanced capital and indicators of the financial level of economic security of enterprises, fully reflecting the industry-specific characteristics of construction companies.

Levels of financial security for construction enterprises were developed and proposed, taking into account their sectoral specifics.

A set of measures was proposed to improve the effectiveness of economic security systems in construction enterprises in both the short and long term, including the identification of the combined impact of external threats and internal vulnerabilities on organizational performance.

The practical value of this approach lies in its universality: it is applied to assess the economic security of construction enterprises, as well as the financial sustainability of enterprises of various sizes and forms of ownership, and is used by other researchers and specialists without direct affiliation with the author.

Independent Scholarly Recognition and Cross-Sector Impact

The sectoral significance of the developed methodologies is confirmed through independent scholarly citation. Kateryna Diachenko’s work is used in:

• doctoral dissertations;

• academic articles and monographs;

• master’s theses;

• materials of international and all-Ukrainian specialized conferences.

Importantly, references to her research appear not only in economics-related works, but also in studies on construction and construction economics, which indicates the cross-sector nature of her scholarly influence. The growth and continuation of citations point to a sustained impact and independent use of the proposed methodological solutions within the professional community.

Contribution to Education as a Long-Term Sectoral Effect

Another area of impact is educational practice. Kateryna Diachenko’s methodological and practical recommendations on assessing economic security are used in the teaching processes of several Ukrainian universities in courses such as:

• Enterprise Economics;

• Enterprise Economic Security;

• Business Security;

• Corporate Finance;

• Enterprise Planning and Control.

These materials are applied in both undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as in the preparation of coursework and final qualification projects. As a result, her research outcomes have become part of the training of specialists whose professional competencies are focused on risk management and the resilience of economic systems.

Market-Oriented Educational Programs

Through her participation in the development of educational programs in economics and economic security, Kateryna Diachenko contributed to the formation of academic models aligned with contemporary labor market demands. These programs emphasize:

• scenario analysis;

• systems thinking;

• managerial decision-making under conditions of uncertainty.

Their objective is to prepare competitive specialists capable of working effectively across various sectors of the economy and adapting to changes in national and international economic environments.

Conclusion: A Contribution Beyond a Single Institution

The combination of scientific development, practical implementation, educational application, and independent scholarly citation allows Kateryna Diachenko’s work to be regarded as a contribution to the development of the sector as a whole, rather than as an outcome confined to a single institution.

Today, her work demonstrates how economic security moves beyond a theoretical category and becomes a practical instrument of strategic management in small, medium, and large enterprises, as well as a foundation for training a new generation of specialists.