Reading and analyzing the Toy Store story imply a critical inquiry into how the act of storytelling can be understood. The entrepreneurial story is situated within the context of the plea to downplay the focus on the individual entrepreneur. As this discussion did not share some of the critical debates on the status of the subject, a narrative study of entrepreneurship might refocus on the storytelling entrepreneur rather than on the process of storytelling. To prevent this, storytelling is conceived as an enacted performance that balances complexity and coherence and that draws upon but is not enclosed by a range of cultural and masternarratives.

This paper aims to uncover the normative assumptions that guide language studies in international business. Relying on sociolinguistics and cosmopolitan theory, we point to the possibility of conceiving language as a social practice rather than a discrete entity, and understanding globalization as the entanglement between universality and particularity rather than treating these two notions separately. Combining these linguistic and global assumptions, we arrive at three different research approaches to study linguistic performances in global work settings: monological lingua franca, monological multilingualism and multilingual franca. As the latter approach is unexplored, we develop the third option which underlines a human-centered multilingualism that conceives language as a social activity in which speakers mobilize multiple linguistic resources to express voice. The advantages of such an approach are its ability to capture the complexities of contemporary global life and its emphasis on a new understanding of multilingualism and diversity that truly goes beyond any kind of monolingualism. In terms of practice implications, a multilingual franca approach provides space for emancipatory politics through allowing mixed language use.