The sphere of expertise and/or
activity may influence tie generation mechanism. This assumption might be
expressed in the following way: NGOs from the same sphere of activity have more
chances to collaborate with each other than with NGOs from other fields[13]. Why we have not included this
trivial assumption? The reason is simple: Kazakhstani NGOs are very flexible:
many of them have many spheres of activity. The average number of spheres of
activity among observed NGOs is more than 3[14].