Under the background of “digital industrialization” and “industrialdigitalization”, the continuous promotion of digital transformation andupgrading of manufacturing industry is a key measure to consolidate thefoundation of China’s real economy. However, whether digital transformationcan improve the risk-taking level is a hot issue for manufacturing enterprises.Taking listed Chinese shipbuilding enterprises as samples, this paper empiricallystudies the mechanism of digital transformation on the level of enterpriserisk taking. The results show that there is a significant positive correlationbetween digital transformation and the level of risk taking of shipbuildingenterprises during 2010-2022. The mechanism test results show that digitaltransformation can improve the level of enterprise risk taking by improving thelevel of enterprise internal control. The research results provide a theoreticalbasis for in-depth understanding of the evolution of risk decision-makingand development path of shipbuilding enterprises in the process of digitaltransformation. The revelation is that manufacturing enterprises should takethe initiative to embrace the new business form of digital economy, increasedigital transformation efforts, and comprehensively consider the couplingmechanism of digital transformation and other factors, in order to shape theirown competitive advantages, and improve the response speed and decisionmakingefficiency of digital change.