This chapter opens with a discussion of mainstream and alternative conceptualisations of the enterprise and of the economy. It then discusses an overview of existing forms of eco-social enterprises and of their framings within different discourses and schools of thought. A central part of the narrative of orthodox economic theory is the enterprise as a capitalist firm operating in a generalised and abstract market and producing goods and services to be consumed by utility maximising consumers and measured in money terms. The chapter then explores five dimensions of a broad definition of eco-social enterprise, based on the literature and authors' own empirical research. The five dimensions of eco-social enterprises, drawing on existing definitions and on our own research, namely: other-than-profit goals, using profits to replenish Nature and community, democratic and localised ownership and governance patterns, rootedness in place and time, and non-market production, exchange or provisioning patterns.