Organizations require employees to work safely; they must perform their occupations in a safe
manner in order to avoid human errors or incidents. However, there is a dearth of empirical research that
examines the motivation to adhere to safety standards as an antecedent for employees’ safety behaviors.
The purpose of this study was to develop a scale that would measure the motivation to work safely and
examine the self-worth sufficiency model as a source of this motivation in medical and health
organizations. Items associated with safety motivation were developed based on Neal and Griffin’s
(2006) work on a prior scale. A survey (n = 558) in Study 1 demonstrated that an exploratory factor
analysis revealed five factors: accomplishment, competition, cooperation, learning, and new safetyoriented
motivation. These results suggested that safety-oriented motivation was distinct from
achievement-oriented motivation. Furthermore, a different survey (n = 517) showed that pride and a
sense of social contribution had a strong effect on the motivation to work safely. Study 2 evaluated the
effect of the self-worth sufficiency model as a source of work motivation and identified that this effect
was particularly salient in jobs in which the avoidance of failure is paramount. Taken together, this series
of studies highlighted the self-worth sufficiency model’s potential in improving employees motivation to
work safely, especially for jobs in which the avoidance of failure is paramount.