摘要：Many studies have focused on the analysis of each of the prototypical four sections of the research article (i.e. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Swales 1990). However, whereas some sections have been subject to a great deal of analysis, especially the Introduction, others have not attracted as much scholarly attention. That is the case of the Methods section. Nevertheless, it is believed that the particular organization and content of this section plays a crucial role in the production of a successful research article. The Methods sections of 24 research articles in Business Management written in English for an international readership and in Spanish for a local audience will be contrastively analysed in terms of their rhetorical organization. When comparing the results to those from previous analyses in the fi eld of medicine, it stems that the Method sections in Business Management articles contains some specifi c steps which could be considered characteristic. Further, the results from the analysis of the comparable corpus indicate that there are certain differences in the extent of inclusion of some steps in the research articles in the two cultural contexts. It seems that both the disciplinary culture and the broad cultural context in which the research articles are written may shape and constraint the microstructure of the Methods sections.
