Research On The Impact Of Digital Transformation On Corporate Risk-taking

In the era of digital economy,the deep integration of digital technology and various fields of economy and society has had a profound impact on the internal organization and operation mode of enterprises.At the beginning of 2020,the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 caused a major impact on China’s economic development.In the process of resisting the epidemic,the application of digital technology in the prevention and control of the epidemic,resumption of work and production has promoted the digital transformation of the whole society.Specifically,at the enterprise level,under the new demand generated by the epidemic,enterprises are more motivated to carry out digital transformation,optimize their operation management and decision-making mechanism,and improve their performance and competitiveness.Therefore,it has become a strategic choice for more and more enterprises to obtain sustainable competitive advantages by using digital technology to enable traditional business departments to realize digital transformation and upgrading.However,there are also studies that show that only some enterprises can benefit from digital transformation.With the advancement of digital transformation,digital transformation not only improves the digital technology of enterprises,but also changes the operation and management mode of enterprises.When the transformation of corporate management mode lags behind the transformation of digital technology,the benefits brought by digitalization and its derivative management costs will offset each other,which will aggravate the transformation pains of most companies,making it difficult to demonstrate its positive effect.In order to evaluate the implementation effect of enterprise digital transformation in a more comprehensive way,scholars have extensively discussed its economic consequences and explored the impact of digital transformation on business operations,investment and financing,but little literature has focused on risk selection in corporate investment decisions and assessed the effects of digital transformation based on a risk-taking perspective.In view of this,this paper explores the impact of digital transformation on corporate risk-taking and further incorporates the enterprise life cycle into the research framework to investigate the differences in the effects of digital transformation on risk-taking under different enterprise life cycles.According to agency theory and resource dependence theory,agency problems and resource constraints are the main reasons for the low level of risk taking of listed enterprises.On the one hand,digital transformation can play the governance effect to improve the corporate governance environment,alleviate agency conflicts and improve the company’s willingness to take risks.On the other hand,digital transformation can exert the resource effect to improve the resource acquisition ability of the company,so that the enterprise will have sufficient resource support when facing the risk investment opportunities,enhance the risk bearing ability,and thus improve the level of corporate risktaking.In addition,at different life cycle stages,there are significant differences in business performance,strategic objectives,organizational structure,governance mechanism and other aspects,and the impact of digital transformation on risk-taking is also different.Based on this,this paper uses the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2007 to 2021,and empirically tests the impact of digital transformation on corporate risk-taking based on principal agent theory,resource dependence theory,information asymmetry theory and life cycle theory.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Digital transformation is helpful to improve the level of corporate risk-taking.(2)For enterprises in different life cycle stages,the impact of digital transformation on risk-taking is different.That is,compared with enterprises in the decline stage,the digital transformation of enterprises in the growth stage and mature stage has a more significant effect on the level of risk-taking.(3)Digital transformation improves corporate risk-taking by reducing agency costs and alleviating financing constraints.(4)Further investigation reveals that digital transformation has a more significant effect on the level of risk-taking among non-state enterprises,high-tech enterprises and enterprises in the eastern region.On this basis,based on the enterprise life cycle research,it is found that digital transformation can significantly improve the level of risk-taking of non-state-owned enterprises in the growth and maturity stage,enterprises in the eastern region,non-high-tech enterprises in the growth stage and high-tech enterprises in the full life cycle stage.At the same time,digital transformation can increase the firm’s value creation capacity by promoting risk-taking.The main innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)Previous studies on digital transformation and corporate risk-taking are mostly carried out from a static perspective,ignoring the influence of enterprise life cycle on the relationship between the two.Therefore,this paper brings the enterprise life cycle into the research framework and analyzes the impact of digital transformation on corporate risk-taking from a dynamic perspective,which makes up for the defects of static perspective and provides references for enterprises to formulate digital transformation strategies according to their own development stages.(2)Different from previous studies,this paper further differentiates the property right nature,technological attribute and geographical location of enterprises,studies the impact of digital transformation on risk-taking under different property right nature,technological attribute and regional attribute of enterprises,further discusses the enterprise life cycle,and more comprehensively reveals the internal influencing factors of digital transformation on corporate risk-taking.It has enriched the research in related fields.