The purpose of this study is to specify the relationship between risk-taking and corporate performance for venture companies. The indicator of risk-taking is the standard deviation of EBITDA/TA, which is the most used in previous studies. In additionally, we consider the time lagged effect of risk-taking and corporate performance and focus on industry profitability to identify the relationship between risk-taking and corporate performance. As a result of the quantitative analysis, the relationship between risk-taking and corporate performance is not statistically significant for Japanese venture companies (established within 11 years). However, in industries with high industry profitability (high average Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)), the relationship between risk-taking and corporate performance is roughly positive for Japanese venture companies (established within 11 years) even when the time lag was taken into account. This study suggests that under what conditions companies should manage corporate risk taking to be profitable for organizations involved in the early stage, such as venture companies, start-up companies, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists.

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