Minority shareholder activism and corporate risk-taking level

Using Chinese A-share listed companies from 2014–2023 as the sample, this paper employs fixed-effects models and mediation-effect models to examine the impact of minority shareholder activism on the corporate risk-taking level (CRTL). The results show that: minority shareholder activism can effectively enhance CRTL; minority shareholder activism can affect CRTL through information disclosure quality (IDQ); the effect of minority shareholder activism on CRTL is heterogeneous between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private enterprises (PEs); the effect of minority shareholder activism on CRTL is heterogeneous between high-tech enterprises (HTE) and non-high-tech enterprises (NHTE); and the effect of minority shareholder activism on CRTL is heterogeneous between firms with a high proportion of independent directors and those with a low proportion of independent directors.