SEQUENTIAL MEDIATION ANALYSIS OF WORKPLACE BULLYING, WORK-LIFE CONFLICT, AND YOUNG EMPLOYEES’ OUTCOMES IN VIETNAM

There has been a growing focus on workplace bullying, especially in emerging countries. This study examines the impact of workplace bullying on young employees’ outcomes in Vietnamese firms. Based on the conservation of resources theory, a sequential mediation model of five constructs (workplace bullying [WPB], work-life conflict [WLC], job satisfaction [JS], work support


INTRODUCTION
Workplace bullying (WPB) is a vital and growing issue that is costly to organisations and harmful to individuals (Kelly, 2005).Although workplace bullying is recognised as a global issue that needs to be studied across the globe (Salin, 2001;Einarsen et al., 2003), this phenomenon just started to receive attention among Asian countries in recent decades.Over the last 25 years, Ciby and Raya (2015) found that the level of bullying is highest in Asia, compared to other continents like Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and Africa.Notably, there are differences in cultural perspectives that affect both theoretical and practical implications (Arenas et al., 2015).Still, the number of studies about WPB has increased due to the needs of organisations (Hodgins et al., 2020).
Studies have shown that bullying is significantly related to deleterious effects on both employees' physical and mental health (Baldry, 2004;Coggan et al., 2003;Conway et al., 2021;Hallberg & Strandmark, 2006;Verkuil et al., 2015).Meanwhile, Yusuf et al. (2020) discovered that WPB was also associated with work-life (or work-family) conflict which related to well-being and the overall quality of life (Fisher, 2002;Greenhaus et al., 2003).To lessen work-life conflict (WLC), Rahim (2019) suggested that managerial understanding plays a vital role, resulting in improved well-being.The negative relationship between workplace bullying and well-being was discovered by Nguyen et al. (2017) in the Vietnamese public sector.As the study encouraged future scholars should examine in larger sample size, this study aims to enhance the findings in terms of looking into potential mediating factors between WPB and well-being such as job satisfaction and social support.In summary, the goal of the study is to develop a sequential mediation model that addresses inclusive WPB, WLC, job satisfaction (JS), social support, and well-being.

Young Adults as Background of Study
It is worth noting that the targets of young employees in the natural sciences reported the most bullying (Zabrodska & Kveton, 2013).In addition, Vietnam is a highly power distance country (Hofstede, 2001) which provides opportunities for WPB (Rai & Agarwal, 2020).Particularly, fresh graduates, those with the least amount of organisational power, are particularly vulnerable to WPB (Hollis, 2014).Taken all the facts above into account, this has led to a considerable concentration on a crucial research and knowledge gap of this bullying phenomenon in such targets.This study aims to provide a new insight for the Vietnamese labour force to lessen the level of bullying as well as enhance the young employees' well-being and JS.
In summary, previous studies have not investigated all mediating factors of worklife conflict, job satisfaction, and social support in examining the relationship between workplace bullying and employee well-being.Therefore, to fill this gap, our study revealed the sequential mediation model inclusive of the mentioned mediating factors.The authors attempt to solve the following research questions: 1. Is WPB directly or indirectly related to WLC, JS, work support, and negative employees' well-being?Which factors play an essential role of mediators?
2. How can enhance employees' JS and well-being as well as prevent bullying acts behaviour at work?
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in Vietnam focused on young employee targets in the bullying context.These newly explored mediators have the potential to contribute to the existing literature about WPB in Vietnam.Apart from that, future researchers can navigate the moderating factors to the relationships between WPB and its outcomes, which will benefit both employers and employees.

Workplace Bullying
Previous researchers have different perspectives on how bullying at work.In short, this phenomenon can be categorised into three key features: (1) the exposure of negative social behaviours, (2) the frequency and duration of the exposure, and (3) the perceived power disparity (Ciby & Raya, 2015).Moreover, according to Einarsen et al. (2009), bullying can be divided into three constructs including work-related, personal-related, and physically intimidating forms of being bullied.The bullied victims are repeatedly targeted with these negative act behaviours over a period of time (e.g., six months) and the perpetrators of bullying at work can be any of the organisational members (Einarsen et al., 2011).
In previous studies, bullying at work has been associated with past research investigation with issues such as job performance (Naseer et al., 2018), turnover intention (Paul & Kee, 2020), and absenteeism (Kivimäki et al., 2000) in the workplace.Furthermore, there is widespread agreement in the literature that bullying causes negative effects on physical and mental health, including anxiety (Quine, 2002), stress (Hoel et al., 2002), or even sleep quality (Nielsen et al., 2020).Although organisations may have anti-bullying or dignity-at-work policies, they have not completely addressed the effects of WPB on employee health and well-being (Hodgins et al., 2020).Thus, the understanding of different types of WPB in different contexts is useful for organisations and future studies (Bartlett & Bartlett, 2011).

Work-Life Conflict
WLC, also known as work-family conflict, is one of the components of worklife interface including WLC, WLB, and work-life enrichment (McMillan et al., 2011).WLC is defined as the situation when demands of participation in one domain are incompatible with demands of participation in the other demand (Adams et al., 1996).Moreover, WLC is related to detrimental consequences such as JS (Mihelic & Tekavčič, 2014), stress (Bulger & Fisher, 2012), and employee health (Gisler et al., 2018).In recent research of Buonomo et al. (2020), WLC mediates the relationships between WPB and burnout which reduces the quality of life (Greenhaus et al., 2003).

Job Satisfaction
According to Locke (1976), JS is commonly characterised as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences, and it is often the resulting work outcome.JS is an attitude that individuals maintain in their jobs.In a study of Lawler and Porter (1967), organisations with a higher JS rate that rapidly decrease the level of absenteeism and turnover.Having such a significant impact on business performance, previous researchers have found that JS is negatively related to WPB (Giorgi et al., 2015;Quine, 2003;Rodríguez-Muñoz et al., 2009) and positively related to employees' well-being (Arenas et al., 2015;Bowling et al., 2010;Robert et al., 2006).

Employees' Well-Being
Well-being is a vital element in basic employees' needs (Adams, 2019).The aspects of well-being can be divided into positive and negative approaches (Huppert & Whittington, 2003).In the study of Karademas (2007), negative well-being (NWB) is the result of neuroticism and stress.Additionally, a large body of literature has shown that WPB has a negative impact on overall well-being (Bernstein & Trimm, 2016;Hsu et al., 2019;Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012).It is noted that well-being is a useful measurement for employees and organisations because it reflects the quality and safety of the working environment as well as how employees feel about their organisation.To boost a positive workplace culture, it is important to lessen the negativity that arises from workplace bullying.

Social Support
Social support, which is described by the ways in which people receive support from others, is usually used as protective effects (or buffering effects) helping people in stressful life events (i.e., job loss, bullying) (Cohen & Wills, 1985).Social support also includes the availability and quality of social relationships by the provision of support which might influence a person's behaviours.Social support can come from a variety of resources such as from supervisors or colleagues (work-related support) as well as from friends and family (non-related support).
Previous research has shown that social support can take two modes of action: (1) the directly mediating influence, also known as the main effect model, and (2) the indirect impact, also known as the moderator effect model (Cohen & Wills, 1985).

Theoretical Foundation
This study's theoretical framework was based on Hobfoll's (1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory.The COR theory is a motivational and work-leading theory of organisational stress and well-being (Hobfoll et al., 2018).According to this theory, people strive to find both direct and indirect means to offset the net loss because resources (e.g., money, energy, and happiness) are valuable and often constrained (Hobfoll, 2001).WPB is a potential stressor and what people can prevent is to save resources in all possible ways (Einarsen et al., 2009).Individuals, therefore, will employ their own resources (e.g., social support) to avoid negative effects caused by bullying behaviours (Bernstein & Trimm, 2016;Hobfoll, 2001).
The COR theory will be applied to understand the linkage between workplace bullying and aforementioned factors.

Workplace bullying and job satisfaction and employees' well-being
Previous research has shown that bullying has a negative impact on employee's JS (Olsen et al., 2017).This negative relationship between WPB and JS is substantial in recent findings of Giorgi et al. (2015), with r = -0.55;Carroll and Lauzier (2014), with r = -0.44;and Lee and Lim (2019), with r = -0.34.Also, in a longitudinal study of Rodríguez-Muñoz et al. (2009), the authors showed that employees who are the targets of workplace bullying reported a lower level of JS compared to the non-targets.They also found that bullying is considered as a cause rather than a consequence of work-related issues regarding NWB and JS.Additionally, results from two meta-analyses of the potential individual-level outcomes of bullying show that bullying is, directly and indirectly, related to mental health problems (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012).Based on the mentioned findings, it is reasonable to predict that higher exposure to bullying will be related to less perceived JS.Therefore, the first hypothesis is proposed: The notion of a relationship between WPB and well-being is not new.Studies of Hsu et al. (2019) and Hayat and Afshari (2021) referred to bullying as having both direct and indirect effects on employees' well-being.Similarly, Sprigg et al. (2019) found that witnessing bullying leads to a low level of optimism (personal resource).However, little is known about the negative side of well-being among bullied victims.Since employees' experience bullying in the workplace, it might increase the level of NWB.Thus, it is appropriate to investigate the relationship of the two factors.The following hypothesis, therefore, is developed: As mentioned in a study by Gerich and Weber (2020), JS has an essential role in mediating the relationship between job stress (i.e., bullying and job demands) and employee outcomes (i.e., burnout).Besides, research about bus drivers' exposure to bullying found that job engagement and JS mediated the relationship between bullying and turnover intentions (Glasø et al., 2011).According to Arenas et al. (2015), the relationship between WPB and well-being is also mediated by JS, depending on the country.Meanwhile, the findings also show that the relationship between well-being and JS is not significant.To examine the mediating role of JS in the relationship between bullying and NWB, the following hypothesis, therefore, is developed: H2: JS mediates the relationship between WPB and NWB.

Work-life conflict
Numerous studies have found that WLC (or work-family conflict) is associated with stress, depression, and several stress-related mental issues.For example, research of Hämmig and Bauer (2014) showed that work-life conflict is the strongest or second strongest of all the studied risk factors and significantly harms health outcomes.Similarly, a study of Haar et al. (2014) also found that WLC reduces WLB and leads to anxiety/depression.Interestingly, Le et al. (2020) revealed that there are inconsistent findings of the relationships between WLC and JS, which differs between Asian and Western contexts.Moreover, previous research has demonstrated that bullying is also related to WLC (Raja et al., 2017;Yoo & Lee, 2018) but with further investigation.In this study, the authors take into consideration the mediating role of WLC on the relationship between WPB and JS.Thus, it is hypothesised that: H3a: WPB is positively related to WLC.
H3b: WLC mediates the relationship between WPB and JS.
The relationship between WLC and psychological well-being has been wellexplored in previous studies.According to Neto et al. (2018), WLC is an important factor in explaining employees' well-being and productivity and should be addressed as well as other work-related factors.Moreover, findings of Neto et al. (2016) found that WLC predicted the level of psychological well-being in three different ways with an 18-month time lag.According to the COR theory, potential or actual loss of resources is related to the conflict between work and family or work and life.Oren and Levin (2017) revealed that work-family conflict is positively related to the threat of actual or potential loss of resources.It is predicted that the relationship between WPB and negative well-being will be mediated by the level of WLC in the workplace.
H3c: WLC mediates the relationship between WPB and NWB.

Social support
Workplace social support has an important role in minimising work-related stress.
For instance, Cassidy et al. (2014) found that social support mediates the impact of bullying involving well-being and ill-being.Moreover, research works have shown that social support also plays a moderating role in the relationship of well-being and bullying at low and medium levels (Finchilescu et al., 2018).Additionally, social support, especially support from co-worker and supervisor, has been found to mediate the relationship between WPB and emotional exhaustion (García et al., 2021), well-being (Cassidy et al., 2014), or health outcomes (Hansen et al., 2006).Therefore, we proposed the following hypotheses: H4a: WPB is negatively related to social support.
H4b: Social support mediates the relationship between WPB and NWB.
JS and social support have been proven to have a reciprocal relationship in previous research.In a study of Zhang et al. (2015), data from 171 full-time Chinese employees show that social support from work domain has a positive impact on JS, and this relationship is mediated by work-family facilitation.Additionally, the findings of Almeida et al. (2019) also revealed that interventions based on social support are decisive for increasing JS.Interestingly, social support in previous investigations was more likely focused on moderating effects rather than mediating role.For example, Despoti et al. (2020) explored the moderating role in bullying, victimisation, and psychopathy; Nguyen et al. (2020) investigated that social support buffered the indirect impact of bullying on work engagement in public sector; Drummond et al. (2016) found that supervisor support and family support were associated with lower WLC, reduced psychological stress, and increased the JS.Taking all the mentioned findings into consideration, the relationship between JS and social support should be developed.Hence, the hypothesis is proposed: H5: JS is positively related to social support.

Work-life conflict and social support
Social support has an important work-family conflict and work-family enhancement.In particular, support from organisations and colleagues positively influence work enhancement of family and reduced the level of work conflicts (Wadsworth & Owens, 2007).Moreover, the relationship between work-family conflict and increased in turnover intentions was buffed by leader support but not by support from family and friends (Nohe & Sonntag, 2014).Similarly, a longitudinal study of O'Driscoll et al. (2004) in Newland found that social support from colleagues moderated the relationship of work-family interference with psychological strain and family satisfaction, family support has no significance in moderating these relationships.The study also discovered that both forms of support have a direct impact on workplace outcomes rather than being moderators with the workplace outcomes.Hence, it is assumed that WLC and social support may have a negative relationship.The following hypothesis is proposed: H6: WLC is negatively related to social support.
Figure 1 shows the sequential mediation model of bullying, WLC, JS, social support, and NWB.

Questionnaire Design
According to Malhotra et al. (2006), the sample size for an exploratory study requires at least 4−5 times the number of items.There are 29 measurement items of five constructs in this study.In addition, according to Bentler and Chou (1987), the ratio of participants to the number of parameters should be at least 5:1, with the ratio of 10:1 being optimal.Moreover, Worthington and Whittaker (2006) recommended using structural equation modelling (SEM), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on sample sizes higher than 200 participants.The study population in this paper were 238 valid responses, which had sufficient power and effect size to yield significant accuracy in data analysis.
The questionnaire survey includes three sections: (1) information background and purpose of the survey; (2) respondent profiles, which include gender, age, education level, working experiences, and bullying understanding (rating 1−5 as to "How confident do you understand the terms of workplace bullying?"),and (3) consists of 29 questions of five construct indicators.To reach native Vietnamese audiences, the initial English version was translated into Vietnamese.The respondents were also able to choose between Vietnamese or English versions before conducting the survey.

Data Collection, Procedure, and Participants
Data were collected from October 2020 to March 2021.There are two steps in the data collection process: a pilot test and an official survey; all the respondents were asked to complete an online survey via Google Forms.A pilot test of this survey was conducted on 50 fresh graduates in different fields (i.e., Marketing, Human Resources, and Data Engineering) at universities in Ho Chi Minh City.
Then, the authors collected feedback to adjust any questions that cause confusion or unapproachable for non-professionals.After being rephrased, the questionnaires were ready to be published.
In this study, the majority of respondents were in Ho Chi Minh City, which accounted for nearly 85.6% of the sample.Due to the difficulties in defining bullied victims, the expected targets are hard to approach.Therefore, a chain-referral sampling method is applied as it is a non-probability sampling method to recruit samples required for the study.Before taking the survey, a short introduction about bullying was presented and participants were asked whether they doubted or had been bullied.If they replied yes, then follow-up questions will be asked in detail.
Then, unusable answers (speeders) were excluded from the data analysis.
The demographic information showed a slight difference in gender.According to Gardner et al. (2020), women are often the targets of bullies at work, the study pay slightly more attention to gender distribution.There are 162 female respondents, accounting for nearly 68.1% of the overall number, compared to 29.1% for male respondents, and others are preferred not to say.The average age of respondents was 23.61, with the majority of respondents between the ages of 20 to 28, accounting for approximately 90% of the total.Moreover, all respondents had working experience of at least six months in any of the following types: official positions, internship, part-time/full-time jobs, freelance jobs, or other forms of working in an organisation.

Measures Workplace bullying
WPB was measured by using the 9-item NAQ-R short version of Notelaers et al. (2019).Respondents were asked to indicate how frequent they experienced any such negative behaviours at work on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = daily.For example, an included item is "being ignored or excluded from colleagues or in group activities."

Work-life conflict
A 6-item scale adopted from O'Neil et al. ( 1986) was used to measure WLC.A sample is included, "my career, job, or school affects the quality of my leisure or family life."Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

Job satisfaction
This study used a 3-item scale from Lawler et al. (1975) to measure JS.Respondents were asked to indicate whether they were satisfied with their job on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.An example is "In general, I don't like my job."

Social support
A 5-item scale adopted from QPSNordic (Wännström et al., 2009) was used to measure the level of social support (SSP), ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.In this study, the authors mainly concentrated on the workplace environment.The questionnaire, therefore, includes only support from supervisors and co-workers.An example item is "If needed, can you get support and help with your work from your immediate superior?"

Negative employees' well-being
Negative well-being (NWB) was measured by using the 6-item scale developed by Warr (1990).Respondents were asked how often they feel in the recent six months, for instance, the feeling of being "tense" or "gloomy" ranging from 1 = never to 5 = all of the time.

Control Variables
According to Hoel et al. (2010) and Zapf et al. (2020), the negative behaviours at work are influenced by gender, age, and educational level.The authors also added a control variable of the level of bullying self-understanding for the investigation.AMOS version 22 was applied to test the controlled variables.It is noted that the level of bullying self-understanding was correlated with WPB (mean difference = 0.20, p < 0.05).Meanwhile, ANOVA and independent samples t-test analyses revealed that there were no significant effects between other control variables and five constructs.

Descriptive Analysis
Table 1 shows the descriptive analysis, Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE) (Raja et al., 2017).As presented in Table 1, the value of Cronbach's alpha is higher than 0.6 and the CR is higher than 0.8, which means the factors have high reliability and consistency (Hair et al., 2010).Meanwhile, the AVE value of all variables is higher than 0.5, which means five constructs have convergent validity as followed by Fornell and Larcker (1981).

Tests of Hypotheses
AMOS version 22 and SPSS version 24 were used to test the validity, discriminant reliability, and proposed hypotheses.Table 2 shows the serial CFA tests were undertaken on alternative measurement models as well as comparisons with five constructs in this study.The authors used PROCESS by Hayes (Hayes, 2013) to test the sequential mediation analyses (model 6) (see Table 3).As per the results in Table 2, the analysis of hypothesised 5-factor measurement model (default model) has a good fit to the data (χ 2 /df = 1.53,CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05).Particularly, model 1 has a better root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value, compared to other models, which is lower than 0.06 (Hu & Bentler, 1999).Based on a study by Hair et al. (2010), these positive indices are acceptable and satisfied with the cut-off SRMR value of less than 0.08.
Figure 2 shows that most hypotheses are accepted, except H4b and H6.  4 show the direct and indirect significant effects of bullying on other factors.Firstly, job satisfaction and NWB were found to be impacted by bullying, with β = -0.289(p < 0.05) and β = 0.181 (p < 0.05), respectively.Moreover, job satisfaction has a significant effect on negative employees' wellbeing.The result is different from the prior study of Arenas et al. (2015).This can be explained by the differences in culture, target audience, and country, all of which can have an impact on the outcome.In this case, job satisfaction was found to be negatively associated with negative employees' well-being (β = −0.25,p < 0.05).
As a result, the H3a, H3b, and H3c hypotheses are accepted.
Previous research demonstrated the moderating and mediating effects of SSP on bullying.Based on the study of Hansen et al. (2006), SSP is directly related to bullying.Similarly, our findings supported that bullying is negatively associated with social support (β = −0.171,p < 0.001), accepting H4a.In other words, the more exposure to WPB, the less perceived support from supervisor and colleagues.
On the other hand, the relationship between SSP and NWB is insignificant.Thus, H4b is rejected.
As expected in H5, JS has a positive relationship with SSP (β = −0.264,p < 0.05).H5 is accepted.Our results are consistent with the findings of Zhang et al. (2015) and Almeida et al. (2019) which have shown that the level of JS can be influenced by SSP.Whereas there are no interaction effects present on WLC and social support.We rejected H6.

Direct Effects of Workplace Bullying on Employees' Outcomes
Our results supported all the direct effects of WPB on young employees' outcomes.
Firstly, the research findings confirm that WPB directly impacted on employees' JS, which is well-aligned with a recent study of Al Hashimi and Azmin (2021) focusing on the hotel sector in Malaysia.As JS has a strong connection with workplace outcomes such as intention to leave, job performance, and mental health (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012), it is reasonable to prevent and reduce the exposure to bullying at work.Interestingly, our study found that people with a better understanding of WPB are less likely to be the targets of negative acts at work (β = −0.2,p < 0.05).Thus, it is imperative to establish training courses, and awareness also needs to be raised about what constitutes bullying behaviours (Li et al., 2020).
In terms of WLC, our research supported the findings of Yoo and Lee (2018), who found that employees exposed to more WPB reported having more worklife imbalance.Although WPB and WLC are the two topics that draw attention in Western research, little has been done in the Asian context.In this study, the results indicate that the relationship between WLC and bullying is statistically significant, explaining that staff with higher exposure to bullying had more increased interpersonal conflicts or conflict-related stress.At managing levels, it should be better equipped to develop interventions to reduce bullying behaviours at work in order to manage WLC and later improve employees' performance (Foy et al., 2019).
Furthermore, prior studies have demonstrated that bullying is a threat to individual and organisational outcomes.For example, Nielsen and Einarsen (2012) found that WPB caused poor psychological well-being in a meta-analysis of 66 independent investigations (N = 77,721).Our results suggest that WPB positively affects employees' psychological NWB, supporting previous research by Finchilescu et al. (2018) who studied on the nursing environment, and Arenas et al. (2015) studied on Italian and Spanish employees.Similarly, the results also indicate that bullied employees had lower SSP from co-workers and supervisors, which is in line with a study of Hansen et al. (2006).However, the association between the two factors is considered weaker compared to the relationships between bullying and other factors.

Indirect Effects of Workplace Bullying on Employees' Outcomes through Mediators
This study extends the findings from previous research.Most prior studies navigated the relationships between bullying and its effects on employees, such as JS (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012), job performance (Olsen et al., 2017), and wellbeing (Arenas et al., 2015;Finchilescu et al., 2018), while there is a research gap in the study of mediating effects of these factors.From the analysed result, Table 3 illustrates the indirect association between bullying and NWB through the mediators of WLC, JS, and SSP.This study, therefore, contributes to the extended literature on bullying research, especially in the Asian context.
Notably, total effect of WPB on NWB through mediators (effect = 0.41; BootSE = 0.07; t-value = 6.185, p < 0.001, and 95% CI = 0.278:0.539) is significantly higher than the direct effect of the two constructs (effect = 0.18; BootSE = 0.06; t-value = 2.867, p < 0.01, and 95% CI = 0.278:0.539).This explains that bullied employees who have WLC and lack of support from colleagues' experience more negative aspects of well-being such as uneased, worried, and depressed feelings at work.In particular, people with more exposure to WPB reported experiencing less wellbeing at work (β = 0.181, p < 0.05), and these associations become stronger after including work-life conflict (β = 0.421, p < 0.05).To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first research on the mediating role of WLC in the WPB context, particularly in Vietnam.
In addition, the study is partially contradictory to the study of Cassidy et al. (2014), who claimed that psychological capital (or SSP) could mediate the relationships between WPB and JS (or well-being).Our results support that the mediating role of social support was insignificant in the study.According to Hofstede's cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980), it can be explained that the differences between collectivism, in most Asian contexts, and individualism, in most Western countries, may influence how people think and behave at work when experiencing bullying.
Thus, future research in this study could navigate other mediators and moderators and could enhance employees' experience in the face of WPB.

CONCLUSION
Little is known about WPB in Asian contexts.This study provided empirical evidence of WPB, WLC, and employees' outcomes in the Vietnamese environment, focusing on targets of young employees.
Firstly, with negative act behaviours (WPB) as antecedents, results showed the significant relationship between bullying and WLC, JS, SSP, and NWB.These results are compatible with the prior studies in the Western population cohort.For example, WPB is directly related to WLC (Raja et al., 2017), JS (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012), and well-being (Hayat & Afshari, 2021).However, the sequential of these relationships are less likely focused.While bullying is a worldwide occurrence, this study serves as a necessary investigation in enhancing the understanding of WPB in an Asian developing setting.
The findings, particularly, extend the role of WLC also mediates the relationship of bullying and JS and well-being.Moreover, the importance of JS, which may lessen NWB, is well confirmed.While prior research only concentrated on the direct effects of bullying, this study also revealed an overall model description for bullying effects on employees' outcomes of fresh graduates in the Vietnamese phenomenon.Finally, mediating effects of social support are not significant in this study which differ from another Western research.

Limitations and Future Research
The results still have some limitations.Firstly, due to the lack of a well-developed definition of bullying in Vietnam, respondents were not able to precisely recognise its effect on daily life.The study had added a question to facilitate the respondents' understanding of the concept, but future research should be designed with a more established scale and scope relevant to the Vietnamese context.Secondly, as the moderation of relationships between WPB and WLC has not been found, other factors such as human resource practices or company culture should also be examined.Finally, as the number of respondents in this research was just at the minimum limit for data analysis, we encourage extending the scale of samples as well as specific branches to validate the research findings.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Proposed research model Notes: N = 238, M = mean; CR = composite reliability; SD = standard deviation; AVE = average variance extracted; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001; the bold numbers in diagonal means that is the correlation coefficient with itself or the self-correlation coefficient of variable

Table 2
Model fit indices

Table 3
Completely standardised indirect effect of WPB on NWB

Table 4
Hypotheses results