Teaching Business Ethics Through the Lens of Chronotype: An Experiential Approach Integrating Ultimatum Games

Wm. Marty Martin; Charles Naquin; Yvette P. Lopez

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Teaching Business Ethics Through the Lens of Chronotype: An Experiential Approach Integrating Ultimatum Games

Wm. Marty Martin, Charles Naquin, and Yvette P. Lopez

Department of Management & Entrepreneurship, DePaul University, USA

Volume 23: 2026 pp. 00-00: ABSTRACT

Business ethics courses struggle to cultivate actionable ethical competence. We present an experiential pedagogy that integrates chronotype research with the ultimatum game to surface moral decision-making’s biological, cognitive, and social drivers. Students complete the Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) and make allocator offers at randomized morning or evening times, enabling a 2 x 2 test of synchrony effects. Structured debriefing links observed deception, fairness reasoning, and dual-process mechanisms to ethical frameworks and real-world practice. Classroom evidence suggests ethical behavior varies with chronotype-time of day alignment, not time of day alone. We outline implementation guidance and leadership implications, advancing engaging, scalable, and relevant evidence-based ethics education.

Keywords: experiential, moral decision-making, chronotype, synchrony effect, deception, System 1 and 2 thinking, negotiation