Methods for assessing the enterprise economic security as a tool to diagnose threats to development

Subject. The article addresses issues of enterprise economic security, its assessment, and measures to prevent threats, taking into account the scale and nature of the latter.Objectives. The focus is on underpinning a unique approach to devising a new method intended to identify and diagnose external and internal threats that negatively affect the level of economic security and have a potential to jeopardize the development of economic entities.Methods. The study rests on methods of theoretical, systems, logical, and comparative analysis of academic literature, general scientific methods, like analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, generalization, the analog approach, and graphics simulation.Results. The paper offers a concept for assessing the enterprise economic security, which is based on the diagnosis of threats and identification of opportunities for development. I explored the modern methodology for monitoring the economic security at the micro level, conducted a comparative analysis of existing methods and approaches, revealed their pros and cons, and presented a new approach to the evaluation of enterprise economic security.Conclusions. The level of enterprise economic security is assessed in conjunction with the current and projected state of enterprise’s potential and risk factors of business environment. If the cumulative effect of risks is significantly higher than the potential, the threats will arise, which may impede the enterprise operation and development.