I don't think safety is directly related to financial performance, and I'm sure there's no conscious safety degradation, but financial performance can affect employee satisfaction, but I don't think you can deny that unsatisfied and demoralized employees (in any industry) tend to make more mistakes than happy ones. As we all know, incidents are never a single occurrence, but a chain of events. Nobody wants to be part of the chain, but it would make sense to me that this research could reflect some contribution to that chain.