For the second year in a row, asurvey of members of corporate boards found that their majorconcern, aside from financial risk, is reputational risk.

Two-thirds (66%) of the directors on the boards of more than 190public and privately held companies surveyed by the accounting firmEisnerAmper reported reputational risk remains their biggestnonfinancial concern, down slightly from the 69% who said the samething last year.

EisnerAmper partner Steven Kreit, one of the study's authors,says he was not surprised at the concern board members expressedabout reputational risk. “Particularly with all the news relatingto reputational risk we've seen—the BP well blowout, the securitybreaches of customer credit data, and so on—it's understandable,”Kreit says. “Before we did this third annual survey, I was thinkingthat risk meant product risk, and you know, if the product wasgood, then the corporation had no problem. But with all these otherthings that can happen, it's obviously a much bigger issue.”