Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 24 ISSUE 2
Written by Todorka ATANASSOVA-KALAYDZHIEVA, Iskra NENCHEVA, Ivanka ZHEKOVA

The contemporary Bulgarian cooperative business model emerged at the end of the 9th century in response to specific socio-economic conditions. It developed progressively with the realization of various businesses – agricultural, credit, or as provision of services to member-cooperators, etc. Throughout the years, the cooperative model underwent periods of significant growth, yet also of stagnation, which has justified the interest that both theory, and business practice have shown in it. Generally recognized is the contribution of a number of national and international researchers who in the past have analyzed the features of the cooperative model and defined it accordingly. From the analyzed literary and normative sources, we can deduce that the definitions and opinions on the cooperative nearly overlap. It is defined as a voluntary union of persons who mutually assist and cooperate with each other with equal responsibilities and rights. The member-cooperators delegate part of their functions to democratically elected leading representatives when they establish a cooperative enterprise. The main goal of the cooperative is to meet the needs of its members in its non-profit oriented activity. Considering the multi-aspect character of the studied topic, we outline the aim of this paper as making an analysis of the origin and development of the cooperative model and its applicability to the agricultural sector in Bulgaria. The chosen methodological approach is based on the statistical groupings of a big corpus of official data on cooperatives entered in the Bulgarian Commercial Register since 2005 to date. We have established certain indicators, reflecting the tendencies in the development of cooperatives by region of planning, economic sectors, annual revenue, etc. We used Microsoft Office and the licensed version of Statistics Grad Pack for Windows for data processing. Main inferences: In Bulgaria, the cooperative business model emerged first in villages to satisfy the needs of the local population. Later, these cooperatives appeared in larger towns. This process in Bulgaria is reverse to other European countries with more developed market economy. The agricultural orientation of the developing Bulgarian economy at the end of the 9th century explains the establishment of the first national cooperatives of the agricultural credit type in villages. In Bulgaria, the cooperative business model as a legal organizational form penetrated almost all branches of the national economy. The role of Sector A “Agriculture, forestry and fish farming” was dominant. To a great extent, this resulted both from the specifics of the Bulgarian economy, and the existing cooperative traditions.

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