7 Types of Intrapreneurship You Should Know About in 2025

Understanding the different types of intrapreneurship is crucial for structuring internal programs that balance creativity with your business objectives. 

However, each intrapreneurship type carries potential risks to the innovation process if you’re not aware of its main drawbacks.

Read on to learn about the main types of intrapreneurship and how to maximize their benefits while controlling the risk factors.

Let’s dive in!

7 Types of Intrapreneurship You Should Know About

Intrapreneurship involves employees acting as entrepreneurs within an organization, driving innovation and growth. 

1. Opportunistic Intrapreneurship

Opportunistic intrapreneurship occurs when employees independently take the initiative to develop new ideas, products, or processes outside formal innovation programs. 

Unlike structured innovation frameworks, this model relies on self-driven individuals who 

• spot an opportunity, 
• test it, and 
• push it forward, often without explicit approval from leadership.

You can find this intrapreneurship in fast-paced, risk-tolerant environments, where employees are encouraged to challenge conventional thinking and informally access company resources to bring their ideas to life. 

Opportunistic intrapreneurs thrive in workplaces that value agility, rapid experimentation, and disruptive innovation. 

However, this approach can clash with existing business priorities, especially if projects consume resources without clear alignment with corporate strategy. 

Without proper governance, opportunistic intrapreneurship can create internal conflicts, inefficiencies, or resistance from leadership.

How to Foster It?

Get Inspired

A team of engineers and data scientists at Spotify identified that users struggled to discover new music effectively. 

Instead of waiting for executive approval, they built an internal prototype of what would later become "Discover Weekly."

Initially, leadership resisted the idea, fearing that algorithmic recommendations would undermine human curation. 

However, the team gathered data showing personalized playlists significantly increased user engagement and retention rates. 

Once executives saw the numbers, the feature became one of Spotify’s most defining user experiences.

2. Advocate Intrapreneurship

In this type, employees recognize and push for an opportunity internally but require executive approval to implement it. 

These intrapreneurs act as internal champions, using:

• data, 
• case studies, and 
• persuasion 

to gain leadership buy-in.

Unlike opportunistic intrapreneurs who act first and seek permission later, advocate intrapreneurs follow internal processes to influence decision-making and gain executive support. 

This type of intrapreneurship works best in hierarchical organizations, where leadership plays a key role in approving major initiatives.

How to Foster It?

3. Producer Intrapreneurship

Producer intrapreneurship implies that companies create dedicated innovation teams or skunkworks units to work on breakthrough ideas independently from the core business operations.

These teams are often given autonomy, specialized budgets, and access to leadership through direct communication to drive high-risk, high-rewards projects.

Producer intrapreneurs are part of officially sanctioned teams focused on disruptive innovation. 

These units operate outside the traditional corporate bureaucracy, allowing for:

• faster decision-making, 
• rapid experimentation, and 
• a startup-like work culture within a larger organization.

How to Foster It?

Get Inspired

One of the most famous examples of producer intrapreneurship is Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, which developed cutting-edge military aircrafts such as the SR-71 Blackbird and F-35 fighter jet.

Skunk Works operated independently from Lockheed’s main business to maintain agility and secrecy, and engineers could directly communicate with top leadership, bypassing traditional bureaucratic layers.

4. Doer Intrapreneurship

Technically, this is more of a characteristic that all intrapreneurs should have rather than a type of intrapreneurship. Still, considering it’s an essential trait that separates a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one, we’ve decided to give it more attention.

Doer intrapreneurs are execution-focused employees who don’t just come up with ideas but also take direct action to implement them. 

They are problem solvers who:

• identify inefficiencies, 
• create solutions, and 
• make improvements to existing processes or products without waiting for formal approval.

Unlike traditional innovators who work within structured programs, doer intrapreneurs prefer hands-on problem-solving and often make real-time changes to improve workflows, customer experiences, or internal processes.

How to Foster It?

Get Ispired

With the Kickbox methodology, an innovation framework, you can help employees turn their ideas into validated projects and encourage them to test and improve their ideas continuously.

What’s more, employees of all levels, positions, departments, or prior experience can contribute ideas through the use of various actionable templates, tools, and gamification elements.

The KICKBOOK, an integral part of the Kickbox methodology, guides your employees through the innovation process, from raw- to implemented ideas, in a structured and engaging manner. 

5. Creator Intrapreneurship

Creator intrapreneurs are visionary thinkers who develop entirely new products, services, or business models. 

They go beyond incremental improvements and focus on game-changing innovations that redefine industries.

Contrary to doers, who focus on execution, creators specialize in idea generation and concept development, often working in R&D departments or special innovation teams.

How to Foster It?

Get Inspired

Our client, CSS, one of Switzerland’s leading health insurance companies, introduced a voice assistant to help the elderly navigate digital menus. 

The company attracted and retained customers more effectively by making the services more inclusive since everyone can interact with a digital agent.

Find out more about how ZF introduced customer-focused innovation in a disrupted Industry using the Kickbox Intrapreneurship from our case study.

6. Implementor Intrapreneurship

Implementor intrapreneurs specialize in turning ideas into reality by taking innovative concepts and making them feasible, scalable, and practical. 

They focus on:

• execution, 
• operational efficiency, and 
• process standardization to ensure that innovations transition from prototypes to real-world applications.

Whereas doers make quick fixes, implementors work on long-term transformation projects that require collaboration across teams and structured planning.

How to Foster It?

Get Inspired

Apple’s operations and supply chain team transformed product designs into mass-produced consumer devices, ensuring seamless manufacturing at a massive scale.

It became one of the world’s most profitable hardware companies thanks to its efficient implementation of innovative product designs.

7. Intuitive Intrapreneurship

Intuitive intrapreneurship happens when employees naturally think like entrepreneurs and proactively drive innovation without formal programs or structured initiatives. 

These intrapreneurs have a dep passion for problem-solving and continuous improvement. 

They often influence company strategy through their independent actions and leadership skills.

Unlike other types of intrapreneurship, which rely on corporate framerworks, intuitive intrapreneurs thrive in organizations that encourage independent thinkers and rewards creative problem-solving.

How to Foster It?

Get Inspired

Jony Ive revolutionized product design without needing formal innovation programs.

He took a bold, independent approach to hardware design, reimagining simplicity and user experience.

His innovative ideas led to the development of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and MacBook, defining Apple’s aesthetic and functional identity.

What are The Key Characteristics of a Successful Intrapreneur?

Regardless of the type of intrapreneurship, intrapreneurs share common characteristics that enable them to drive innovation and change within organizations.

• Successful intrapreneurs have the confidence to pitch new ideas and challenge established systems. This confidence is often cultivated through mentorship and support from management, allowing them to advocate for their initiatives effectively.
• They are good at making informed decisions. They gather insights from various perspectives and communicate clear plans once a decision is made, demonstrating leadership in navigating complex situations.
• A hallmark of successful intrapreneurs is their ability to identify problems or gaps within the organization that others may overlook. They are proactive in recognizing opportunities for improvement and addressing long-standing issues.
• Effective problem-solving is crucial for intrapreneurs, as they often face challenges that require innovative solutions. Their ability to think critically and creatively allows them to tackle obstacles head-on.
• Curiosity drives successful intrapreneurs to explore new ideas and continuously seek knowledge. They remain open to learning from experiences, both successes and failures, which fuels their innovative capabilities.
• Intrapreneurs are proactive individuals who turn ideas into reality through execution. They prioritize taking action over mere contemplation, allowing them to iterate quickly and adapt to changing circumstances.

How Can Your Organization Effectively Support Intrapreneurs?

In order to create a supportive intrapreneurial culture, you should provide the necessary resources and recognize intrapreneurial efforts.

• Create a Supportive Environment:  Establish a culture that encourages risk-taking, experimentation, and learning from failure. Provide resources, training, and mentorship to empower employees to act as intrapreneurs.
• Promote Collaboration: Break down silos and foster cross-functional collaboration by encouraging employees to share ideas, work together on projects, and leverage diverse perspectives to drive innovation.
• Recognize and Reward Intrapreneurial Efforts: Acknowledge and celebrate intrapreneurial initiatives and achievements. You can implement recognition programs, incentives, and career advancement opportunities for employees who demonstrate intrapreneurial qualities.
• Embrace a Growth Mindset: Cultivate a growth mindset within the organization, where employees can embrace challenges, learn from feedback, and continuously improve. Also, encourage a culture of continuous learning and professional development.

If you want to get more practical tips about best innovation practices, make sure to jump to our blog, 8 Corporate Innovation Best Practices You Should Know About.

How Can You Nurture Intrapreneural Mindsets among Your Employees, Together with rready?

rready provides modular innovation management solutions that help organizations generate, collect, validate, and execute ideas from start to finish.

Our solutions include:

• rready Idea Management
• KICKBOX Intrapreneurship, and
• rready Innovation Management.

As a result, you get an end-to-end solution for managing your entire innovation portfolio, so you can: 

• Use customizable idea submission forms to gather relevant information on ideas with structured and detailed input for efficient evaluation.
  
  

• Source ideas with employees submitting ideas for projects and topics within a particular time frame.
• Easily track task assignments to manage tasks more efficiently.
• Tailor the platform to your unique needs with personalized onboarding, workflows, granular roles, and a permission management system for full control.
• Empower your employees to take ownership of their ideas without the risk of failure while decentralizing the innovation process.
  

• Motivate employees to participate actively by enabling digital wallets your employees can use to book experts and by providing innovators access to necessary tools and coaching for their innovation journey.
• Rate ideas using scorecards and feedback tools.

At rready, we practice what we preach — Progress is what drives us. Hence, we released our rready.AI, to put AI at the core of your innovation strategy. 

rready.AI — The Firts AI–native System for Corporate Innovation

We started rolling out cutting-edge AI features, 5 features in 5 weeks, all tailored for our corporate clients:

• Full AI control: Decide which AI features to enable and activate only the ones that suit your organization, whether it's ideal generation, submission assessments, or workflow automation.
• BYO AI: Integrate your own AI models into our platform and keep full control of your data and strategy to ensure they remain under your roof. You can easily integrate AI from leading providers like OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek.
• AI Language Search: Effortlessly search and identify ideas, topics, or people in any language to fuel global collaboration and diverse innovation.
• AI Image Generation: Give a face to your ideas with AI-generated visuals that make submissions faster, clearer, and more impactful.
• AI Similarity Search: Automatically detect similar or duplicate ideas and reduce redundancy while streamlining workflows. You can build on existing ideas and connect employees with similar concepts to boost collaboration and innovation.

Make sure to stay tuned for more.

We’ve assisted numerous organizations in launching and scaling innovation programs within their company. 

Our result-oriented and hands-on innovation program encourages continuous learning, helping you grow and nurture an intrapreneurial mindset among your employees.

Get access to our free demo today to learn how to motivate your employees to develop ideas that drive innovation. 

Keep Learning:

• 10 Successful KICKBOX Intrapreneurship Projects
• Innovation Roadmap - Everything You Need to Know
• Overcoming a 'We're Not Ready' Mindset: Start Innovating Now