INTRODUCTION AND SCENARIO

You are the CEO of a small e-commerce business that sells antique furniture online.

You obtain your stock of antique furniture mainly through purchasing these items from deceased estates all over South Africa. You have a simple business model: "buy cheap, sell dear." So, for example, you might acquire a stock of furniture worth, say R800 000, then mark up the price to, say, R1.5 million. This ensures that your costs are covered and that you make a satisfactory profit.

With the coronavirus pandemic and the lengthy lockdown period in the country, your business suffered enormously, and you came close to bankruptcy. However, under lockdown level1, your sales are starting to pick up again, and you are keen to obtain new stocks.

Scenario:

A 94-year old woman died recently of Covid-19. Her house is full of furniture from the Anglo-Boer War period (around the year 1900). It is worth a fortune (maybe R15 million by your quick estimation). The old woman's only surviving relative is an

equally old brother, who said you could take the whole lot for R150 000. Clearly, he has no idea of the real value of the furniture. Under normal circumstances, you would have been happy to pay as much as R10 million for the lot. (You would have had no trouble obtaining a bank loan to cover the full amount).

What should you do?

REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES

3.1 Instead of just making a decision "based on your gut feel," you have decided to use Crane and Matten's 2007 Model of Ethical Decision-making to assist you to arrive at the best ethical solution.

3.2 For this assignment, you are required to apply the Crane and Matten model.