We aim to empower companies to make more strategic and successful decisions when it comes to integrating key employees after an M&A.We wish to look at the due diligence preparation in regards to key employees. More specifically, the incentives taken to identify, motivate, and retain them. As well as the impact of the incentives on the success of the integration. The reason being, that negletation of integration is considered the main factor of failure of M&A, a successful integration will lead a lower failure rate.We wish to conduct an in-depth analysis of the case company, which will not only allow us to get the necessary data for our study but it will also benefit you, as you will get insights into how to improve your integration processes. For our study to be relevant, we wish to collaborate with a company that has had at least one successful M&A, and have dealt with implementation of incentives to key employees.  

Assuming that explicit incentives schemes are helpful towards creating a successful integration - as we will test - and thereby increase M&A likelihood of success, this can empower your company to make thoughtful decisions focusing on the incentivization of key employees. Empirical studies point out the importance of employees in the integration process, as they face a lot of uncertainty (Zhang et al., 2015; Schweizer and Patzelt, 2012). This might lead to them searching for other jobs or decrease their work outcome due to concerns and lack of motivation. If our hypothesis is verified it can help companies implement a strategy of creating explicit incentives schemes that will enhance the integration process. The main way to improve integration is to have correct talent management (Stahl and Voigt, 2008). Talent management is mainly achieved through the identification and retention of key employees (Stahl and Voigt, 2008). Nevertheless, the research on this topic is limited and ambiguous, as many scholars prefer to focus on the cultural side of integration instead of the key employee side of it. The understanding of how to leverage key employees to stay post-merger is crucial for the success of the cross-border M&A. A deep knowledge of how to identify them, motivate them, and incentivize can be the key to moving one step further to understanding how M&A work. Our thesis, will focus on this issue and make and analysis and identification of the strategies that work better. Upon reaching a conclusion we will share the insigths with you, so that you can implement them in your company if you wish so. The access to such an analysis can leverage your competitive advantages.  Non-disclosure agreements are possible and will be discussed before the beginning of the collaboration. 

Our motivation is two-folded.Firstly, as a group of 2 we wish to combine both of our interests. More specifically, I have a deep interest in M&A that arose from a past research in the area and my studies at CBS; and my partner has a deep interest in HR pratices that arose from courses such as "Organizational Behavior" and her work experience within the area.Secondly, we believe that employees are the companies most valuable asset and are the key to having a successful M&A. Hence, the combination of both topics can bring insights to a field of study, M&A and employees, which is often overlooked. The research on this area is scarce, however multiple papers point to the lack of attention of employees during M&A process as they are most often only considered after the merge. Research recognizes this as the problem. 

We believe that our team skills are complementary, and our combined knowledge, interest and experience bring a unique set of skills. We have been in the same study group together for the entire study programme, and we have elaborated multiple projects together that received great feedback. From these experiences, we both know that we are equally ambitious and devote a lot of work in any project we undertake. Moreover, the combination of students from different nationalities gives us an insigth of different perspectives, and gives us a broader understanding of different cultures. In addittion, past courses undertaken by us, such as Business Research Methodology ensure that we know who to conduct meaningful research in a structure and logical way. One of us is working in HR, and wishes to do so going forward, while the other aims to work with internationalization and M&A's.