Acknowledging the definitional dilemma, in 1996, the European Commission’s 'EMergence des Enterprises Sociales en Europe
(EMES) set out to identify economic/entrepreneurial and social criteria by which SEs could be defined (EMES, 1998), reflecting
the economic and social dimensions of SEs. The EMES construct (Table 1: EMES criteria for the 'Ideal-type’ of SE) was
influenced by several disciplines (economics, sociology, political science and management) and is recognized as a robust
framework for describing SEs (Defourny&Nyssens, 2010). The Doi Tung Development Project in Chiang Rai, northern
Thailand was selected as an example of a long-running SE in the field of agricultural development and was assessed for its ‘fit’
with the EMES criteria for social enterprises. The following section provides an overview of the project.