Abstract: Taking the A share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2005 to 2015 as the samples, this paper analyzes the affecting mechanisms and function effects of the choice of competitive strategies on the risk-taking level of enterprises under different business life cycles. The results show that the choice of competitive strategies of the enterprises can produce different risk-taking level. Compared with the cost leadership strategy, the differentiation strategy can significantly improve the enterprise risk-taking level. Under the different life cycles, the enterprise risk-taking level is lower during the growth period, and higher during the recession period. When measuring the horizontal and vertical risk-taking level, the impact of the competitive strategy on the vertical risk-taking level is more significant than that on the horizontal risk-taking level. When an enterprise is going from the growth period to the decline period, the influence of the competition strategy on the enterprise risk-taking will present a trend of change from lower to higher. This conclusion has enriched the research scope of strategic management and enterprise risk-taking and has provided realistic support to the effective formulation of strategic planning and investment decisions of the enterprise management.

Key words: enterprise life cycle; risk taking; competitive strategy