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Responding to recent pleas both to critically analyze and to conceptually advance social entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the political "unconscious" operates in the narration of social entrepreneurship and how it poses a limit to alternative forms of thinking and talking. Design/methodology/approach - To move the field beyond a predominantly monological way of narrating, various genres of narrating social entrepreneurship are identified, critically discussed and illustrated against the backdrop of development aid. Findings - The paper identifies and distinguishes between a grand narrative that incorporates a messianistic script of harmonious social change, counter-narratives that render visible the intertextual relations that interpellate the grand narration of social entrepreneurship and little narratives that probe novel territories by investigating the paradoxes and ambivalences of the social. Practical implications - The paper suggests a minor understanding and non-heroic practice of social entrepreneurship guided by the idea of "messianism without a messiah." Originality/value - The paper suggests critical reflexivity as a way to analyze and multiply the circulating narrations of social entrepreneurship. .

Trotz zunehmender sprachlicher Durchmischung der heutigen Firmenbelegschaften hat Sprache als Differenzlinie in der Diversitätsforschung bislang relativ wenig Beachtung erhalten. Anhand einer diskursanalytischen Fallstudie aus der Schweiz zeigt dieser Beitrag auf, wie Mitarbeiter_innen von Unternehmen mit sprachlich durchmischter Belegschaft die Konsequenzen von Sprachenvielfalt beschreiben, und wie sie mit diesen Konsequenzen umgehen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass Sprachkenntnisse als sehr relevant für die zur Verfügung stehenden Handlungsspielräume interpretiert werden. Gleichzeitig schildern Beschäftigte eine Vielzahl von Arten, sich trotz limitierter Sprachkenntnisse Handlungsspielräume zu verschaffen.

Schlüsselwörter: Sprachenvielfalt, Sprachkenntnisse, Ungleichheiten, Handlungsspielräume, Schweiz

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„The language is ‚broken English‘“: How employees create spaces for agency in spite of limited language skills Abstract In spite of the increasing mix of native languages in today’s companies’ workforce, language as a diversity dimension has received relatively little attention in diversity research to date. Based on a case study conducted in Switzerland, this article shows how employees of linguistically diverse companies describe the consequences of language diversity, and how they handle these consequences. The findings show that language skills are interpreted as very relevant for an employee’s scope of action. At the same time, employees describe a number of forms to create spaces for agency in spite of their limited language skills.

Keywords: Language diversity, language skills, inequalities, scopes of action, Switzerland