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In recent years, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a prominent endeavour in numerous enterprises and organizations. The purpose of this article is to investigate the theoretical aspects of CSR's commercial significance, as well as to identify and analyse CSR practices during COVID-19 in Bangladesh and Singapore. Government funding alone may not be sufficient to offset any adversity's economic and other consequences. Hence, CSR has evolved. This article examines what role CSR played during the difficult COVID-19 pandemic in two countries. The private sector made significant contributions through CSR to healthcare infrastructure and mitigating the economic burden of COVID-19 in both countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitudes and perceptions of senior managers in Bangladesh with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR), focusing on the impact of CSR promotional programmes in fostering an affirmative view of sustainable development. This issue has special significance in a country that is one of the fastest growing economies in south Asia and also particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of 32 managers of large enterprises operating in a variety of industries.

The positive attitudes observed suggest that various programmes adopted to promote CSR have had some effect. However, sustainable development and environmental issues tend to remain on the periphery of managers’ understandings and perceptions of CSR.

This study aids understanding of how business managers may respond to CSR promotional campaigns. Further studies in other comparable countries, and in other settings where CSR is poorly established, are encouraged in order to provide more comprehensive insights and overcome the limited sample size of the current study.

While insights to how the managers of local enterprises can be persuaded to become more effectively engaged in CSR are provided, a need to foster a more comprehensive notion of CSR is also identified.

As well as contributing to redressing the strong bias towards developed country settings in CSR research, this research is novel in exploring how CSR promotional efforts may influence the attitudes and perceptions of managers.

This study looked into the scope of integrating the aspirations of zakah and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to counter poverty, inequity, illiteracy, malnutrition and environmental pollution to ensure peace, happiness, prosperity and sustainability as envisaged in sustainable development goals (SDGs).

This is a qualitative research study conducted using both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected from 29 business enterprises in Bangladesh employing a semi-structured interview protocol. The secondary data were collected through content analysis of annual reports, websites and CSR publications of sample organizations. Finally, collected qualitative data have been analyzed thematically following the due procedures to address the research questions.

The findings reveal that integration of the aspirations of zakah and CSR is a convenient and wholehearted approach for entrepreneurs resulting in pursuing SDGs. In addition, business entrepreneurs in Bangladesh consider such practices as killing two birds with one stone because this approach warrants performing both religious and social obligations simultaneously. Interestingly, the study explores that shariah compliance acts as a guiding force for selecting well-being-oriented projects in zakah-funded CSR resulting in pursuing the priority goals – No Poverty (1), Zero Hunger (2) – of SDGs, thereby addressing some of the most critical issues of emerging economies such as Bangladesh.

The findings of this research can be used as a guide to incorporate the spirit and principle of zakah into the CSR programs aimed at pursuing SDGs mainly in Muslim countries representing one-fourth of the world population.

Integration of the aspirations of zakah and CSR is an innovative move and net addition to the literature on sustainability, CSR and zakah because Muslim business entrepreneurs will now conveniently be able to use the entrepreneurs' zakah money – readily available in each financial year – to fund the entrepreneurs' various CSR projects (within shariah framework) relating to poverty alleviation, humanitarian and disaster relief, health and sanitation and environmental conservation which will eventually contribute to pursuing various SDGs.