The dynamical description of light, intermediate, heavy and superheavy nuclei formed in heavy-ion collisions is worked out using the dynamical cluster decay model (DCM), with reference to various effects such as deformation and orientation, temperature, angular momentum etc. Based on the quantum mechanical fragmentation theory (QMFT), DCM has been applied to understand the decay mechanism of a large number of nuclei formed in low-energy heavy-ion reactions. Various features related to the dynamics of competing decay modes of nuclear systems are explored by addressing the experimental data of a number of reactions in light, intermediate, heavy and superheavy mass regions. The DCM, being a non-statistical description for the decay of a compound nucleus, treats light particles (LPs) or equivalently evaporation residues (ERs), intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) and fission fragments on equal footing and hence, provides an alternative to the available statistical model approaches to address fusion–fission and related phenomena.