Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) has almost become an emotive phrase in academic research and business practice in recent years, especially due to the large number of studies that report on their failure. One of the most prominent reasons for the low success rate of M&A transactions is the insufficient involvement of employees in such transactions. Although in recent years human resource issues have increasingly been addressed in M&A due diligence, the specific employee competence requirements that ensue from M&A transactions have to date hardly been investigated in academic research and business...