Table 2 Strategies recommended to support intrapreneurs, adapted from Heinze and Weber (2015)

1. Leverage status in the institutional field: Where intrapreneurs build credibility in their broader profession by taking on roles that carry status and influence, including academia, associations, boards. This enhances their credibility and visibility internally to influence and legitimize the need for change

2. Gain proprietary jurisdiction over resources: Where intrapreneurs directly and indirectly acquire and administer external funding sources to build and extend their programme of work, thereby reducing dependence on and competition for resources and decision structures within the organization

3. Create trading zones: Where intrapreneurs identify, prioritize, and participate in/attend spaces/forums where their ideas and knowledge can be exchanged in a low-stakes environment between internal stakeholders. This is particularly focused on engagement opportunities that are associated with learning and respectful inquiry rather than decision-making and endorsement processes. The intrapreneur may repurpose the agenda or direction of these forums to achieve mutual learning that aids the change objective(s)

4. Build a pipeline: Where intrapreneurs systematically build a core following of individuals that engage in the change dialogue and contribute to mobilizing the change

5. Use experimentation to build capacity: Where intrapreneurs can learn, reflect on, and refine their approaches, to improve effectiveness, to enable increased responsiveness and targetability for future opportunities. Experimentation supports the intrapreneur to learn how to improve their execution and gain greater acceptance of their change. Experiments can incorporate the refining of concepts, templates or resource development for future utility, and other similar building block activities that enhance the intrapreneur’s sensitivity to time-limited opportunities

6. Establish formal free spaces with endowed resources and status (Requires strategies 1 and 2. When done well, this tactic also enhances the effectiveness of strategies 3, 4, 5): Where intrapreneurs can establish and formalize business units within the organization. This can include establishing dedicated roles, office accommodation and access to necessary facilities and ancillary supports

7. Create and exploit opportunities for ongoing change: Where intrapreneurs maintain constant focus on horizon scanning activities to identify additional opportunities to bolster change efforts. This can include acquiring additional funding, fostering new partnerships, technological or operational enhancements, and personnel/organizational/system/political events

8. Extensive and diverse representation/membership at multiple organizational forums/communities: Where the intrapreneur integrates their role and presence across several of the organization’s forums/communities. This is to sustain regular engagement with stakeholders to bed down the change and identify improvement/expansion opportunities