This thesis is concerned with perceived upper management attitudes regarding safety, and their effects on the project managers of a construction company. To study these effects, surveys were sent to 46 project managers of a large general contractor with offices all over the United States. The first part of the survey was designed to capture the project managers' educational background and their current backlog. The second part attempted to measure project managers' behavior and attitude towards implementing and executing the company's safety policies. In addition, the project managers were asked to provide their opinion of the strengths and weaknesses of the current safety program and suggestions for improvement. The questions were qualitative as well as quantitative in nature, and the quantitative responses were analyzed with SPSS. 32 participants responded. The responses showed that project managers understand the need for safety, but that they perceive upper management to place a greater emphasis on budget and schedule. Since their evaluations are based mainly on budget and schedule performance, and only for a small part on safety, they will emphasize budget and schedule before anything else. Upper management should change the evaluation procedure to reflect the emphasis on safety and to demonstrate that they practice what they preach. In addition, this study obtained some valuable suggestions for an improvement of the safety and training programs for field personnel. This study also demonstrates that the implementation of policies will be hindered, if not made impossible, if the background, i.e. the reason for the policy is not explained and understood. Many companies operating in construction and manufacturing environments probably face similar problems. However, these results should be understood in the context of this study, and may only be valid for contractors of similar size and organizational structure.