Many countries are working on the realization of a new sort of public management, which is less governmental and more market oriented. As a consequence the role of health-care managers is changing. They are increasingly addressed as (social) entrepreneurs. This article is based on the results of a survey sent to Dutch health-care executives. The aim of the survey was to explore how the new discourse affects the practice of management. The results show that entrepreneurship is a construction and a contested concept. Nevertheless, executives are very sensitive to the concept. It certainly confuses them and can make them feel more vulnerable. However, new expectations can also perform an important function as a catalyst for executives to rethink their role and their position. From that point of view the phase of multiinterpretable expectations and vague discourse can be seen as a necessary phase in realizing health-care reform.