The 2013 Global Risk Management Survey by Aon Risk Solutions shows increasingly complex risks and a business environment in which those exposures can have worldwide consequences.

The annual survey, Aon's most comprehensive ever on global risks, was released Monday during the Risk & Insurance Management Society's annual conference in Los Angeles.

The top 10 risks in the new survey are economic slowdown/slow recovery, regulatory/legislative changes, increasing competition, damage to reputation/brand, failure to attract or retain top talent, failure to innovate/meet customer needs, business interruption, commodity price risk, cash flow/liquidity risk and political risk/uncertainties.

Stephen Cross, Dublin-based CEO of Aon Global Risk Consulting, said the survey shows there are “constellations of risk,” or instances of risks influencing each other. For example, 13 risks among the 50 ranked in the survey influence the fourth-ranked risk, damage to reputation/brand.

“Reputation is obviously so important to so many companies,” Mr. Cross said. “A lot of these risks are actually circling around the core risk of damage to reputation and brand.”

There's a similar “constellation” surrounding the No. 5 risk: failure to attract or retain top talent, Mr. Cross said. That includes a risk that tied for No. 49, harassment/discrimination, which he also included in the constellation around reputation and brand risk. “I'm really surprised that risk … is not further up the field'' given that it affects No. 4 (reputation damage) and No. 5, (inability to retain top talent) he said.

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“Risk managers and the C-suite need to think much more carefully and clearly around the interconnectivity of various risks,” Mr. Cross said.

He said he was disappointed that corporate social responsibility/sustainability and climate change ranked No. 37 and No. 38, respectively.

“I would have thought sustainability should have been farther up the chart,” Mr. Cross said. As for climate change, “as a citizen of the world I could read it one way and say everybody thinks they've dealt with the risk, but I really don't believe that.”

A risk ranked No. 44 that Mr. Cross said should have ranked higher is pandemic risk/health crisis. Current concern over avian flu in China demonstrates that pandemic should be more of a concern, he said.

As for unethical behavior's ranking at No. 43, Mr. Cross said, “How quickly we forget Mr. (Bernard) Madoff (the jailed fraudulent money manager). How quickly we forget about Enron.”

“To me, a risk that can tear down your company should be farther up the chart,” Mr. Cross said of Enron.

Computer crime/hacking/viruses/malicious code ranked No. 18 in this year's survey, which Mr. Cross said likely reflects a lack of awareness of the risk. “I think when we do the survey in two years time, it's going to be higher up,” he said.

Conducted in the fourth quarter of 2012, the Aon survey drew 1,415 responses from companies representing 28 industries in 70 countries.