UNDERSTANDING HOW WORK ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES JOB SATISFACTION IN THE NIGERIAN PRIVATE SECTOR: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT

Job satisfaction has remained a central idea in organizational psychology, largely because of its consistent link to how people behave at work. Despite growing research on its predictors, less is known about the psychological processes through which workplace conditions shape satisfaction, particularly in sub-Saharan African contexts. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Organizational Support Theory (OST), this study examined how work environment and perceived organizational support (POS) relate to job satisfaction, and whether POS explains the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction. A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was used, with data collected from 710 employees across private-sector organizations in Nigeria. The study employed the validated Work Environment Scale, the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support, and the Job Satisfaction Survey. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapped mediation analysis were used to test the proposed relationships. The findings showed that the work environment and POS significantly and positively predicted job satisfaction. The results further revealed that POS directly (β = .28, t = 5.05, 95% CI [.1713, .3889]) and indirectly (β = .86, 95% BootCI [.7659, .9576]) significantly mediated the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction, suggesting that employees' perceptions of organizational support play an important role in how workplace conditions influence job satisfaction. The findings extend SET and OST by showing that, in a resource-constrained labour environment like Nigeria, workplace conditions are interpreted through a strong psychological lens, in which perceived support is the key pathway shaping employee satisfaction. Practical implications for human resource practices in the Nigerian private sector are also considered.