Structural Considerations in Defining the Non-Profit Sector Boundaries

After the beginning of the democratic changes in Bulgaria the number of civil organizations in this country has increased considerably, causing a heightened scientific interest in the forming non-commercial sector. The variegated character of the organizations constituting it, however, renders the unequivocal determination of its scope difficult and creates conditions for conducting studies with low rate of validity. In this context the differentiation of the various concepts, which have entered the literature and practice as synonyms of the non-commercial sector is a step towards the clarification of its boundaries and nature. Defending the proposition that their parallel existence reflects different levels of structuralization, in the present article there is offered a variant of their criteria-based identification