Context: To keep the competitive advantage and adapt to changes in the market and technology, companies need to innovate in an organised, purposeful and systematic manner. However, due to their size and complexity, large companies tend to focus on the structure in maintaining their business, which can potentially lower their agility to innovate.Objective: The aims of this study are to provide an overview of the current research on innovation initiatives and to identify the challenges of implementing those initiatives in the context of large software companies.Method: The investigation was primarily performed using a systematic mapping approach of published literature on corporate innovation and en-