Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are a crucial phenomenon, which is ever growing since the 1990s. The area of M&A gained a momentum, which is visible by increase in number and value of M&A deals. There can be many reasons for which the firms are involved in this inorganic activity very actively. It is thought-inciting that seeking what can be major factors which are determining the M&A in an economy. Though the firms are entering into domestic, inbound and outbound deals aggressively, the literature for inbound and outbound mergers and acquisitions is not rationalized and sufficient. The study has taken Scopus as database to extract the research papers on determinants of M&A from 1996 to 2021. This study brings out the growing literature on determinants of inbound and outbound mergers and acquisitions. The findings are suggesting that the factors of cross border inbound and outbound M&A can be considered generalizable for the countries exceptionally there can be some factors like R&D intensity, marketing expenses which cannot be used commonly in all sector-specific and country-specific M&A deals.