An executive who hosted a dinner for Japanese clients gave everyone silver letter openers and was mystified when all of them were left behind. But what happened is no mystery to Hilka Klinkenberg.

“In Japan—and in parts of Europe and Latin America—you don’t give something sharp because the subliminal message is the severing of the relationship,” says Klinkenberg, a consultant on global manners and protocol, whose company, Etiquette International, was subsequently hired by the executive’s company.

Such faux pas are not limited to cross-border misunderstandings. Klinkenberg was consulting elsewhere when an executive assistant told her that her company’s C.E.O. needed a primer on gift giving.

“[The C.E.O.] had given her a big box of chocolates but knew that she was diabetic,” Klinkenberg says. “Somehow, he just didn’t put two and two together.”

While hanging Christmas stockings over cubicles and spinning dreidels during board meetings are not advisable, gift giving during the holidays is alive and well in the workplace. According to Promotional Products Association International, a trade group, corporations spent more than $4.5 billion on gifts to clients and employees in 2006. While plenty of that money is spent on fruit arrangements, more companies are beginning to think outside of the basket. Some hire gift consultants who steer them clear of gift minefields (jewelry, fragrances, and—apparently this isn’t a no-brainer for everyone—lingerie) and help them devise structured gift-giving programs.

“Some gifts that just get the job done, like pens and wine, are uninspired but adequate,” says Melinda Crews, a consultant whose M. Crews & Company has designed gift programs for companies including Hertz, Virgin Atlantic, and UBS. “But you’re missing an opportunity to show that you’ve thought about it.”

Whether buying for the boss, subordinates, or clients, Crews says that before you go shopping for a gift, you should “take five minutes to sit down and think about what the relationship is between [you] and the recipient.”

Buying for affluent C.E.O.’s can be particularly mind-boggling, of course, because “it’s not like they can’t purchase anything they want,” says Crews. “You don’t want to just walk down the street and go into a store—you have to find something that is more meaningful.”

A rising star who is buying for the boss might be tempted toward the extravagant, “but sometimes putting a financial limit on yourself makes you more creative on what the gift would be,” Crews said. Plus, nobody likes a kiss-up. “You don’t want to look like you’re going out of the way to curry favor with your boss.”

When asked to help choose gifts for executives, she begins researching the recipients’ interests and tastes.

“I liken it to due diligence for a deal,” Crews says. “It’s 90 percent thought and 10 percent actualization.”

A few years ago, an international copier company wanted a holiday gift for one of its senior executives—a golf fanatic—so Crews arranged for a personal tour of the U.S.G.A. Golf House and Museum in Far Hills, New Jersey. The location also houses a golf-equipment-testing facility, and since Crews had done some research and knew that the executive was mathematically inclined, she arranged for him to view firsthand how golf balls were tested in the lab. (While the executive was thrilled with the gift, he wound up being unable to take the tour because of a last-minute business trip.)

Robyn Freedman Spizman, author of Make It Memorable: An A-to-Z Guide to Making Any Event, Gift, or Occasion Dazzling, suggests giving gifts that combine recommendations for places to eat or shop with an actual gift. So if, for example, you went to a restaurant that you think a business associate would enjoy, you could send him or her the maître d’s card and arrange with the restaurant to have a particular bottle of wine waiting at their table on the day or night of their reservation.

Such gifts “make recipients feel special rather than obligated to return a gift,” which is key in holiday business gift giving, Spizman says. “You can just say, ‘I went to this fabulous restaurant; it’s hard to get a reservation, so listen, I let the maître d’ know you’ll be calling.’” Such a personal gift—whether for clients, superiors, or subordinates—“lets people know that you care about them as a person because you know what they like to eat or where they like to shop,” says Spizman.

In general, Crews advises executive gift givers to think about what a gift is trying to convey, set a budget that will appear neither cheap nor extravagant, and choose gifts that will avoid appearances of favoritism or conflicts of interest. Once they find the right gift, Crews counsels clients on a graceful way to present it, instead of what she calls the typical “blush and thrust” delivery, which comes from a “fundamental reticence” many have with giving gifts, she says. Rather, one should give the gift with ease and confidence, and never apologize that it’s really nothing or just something you picked up, says Crews.

As for gifts given en masse by companies, Crews says high-tech gadgets are “certainly of the moment,” and she often recommends iPod accoutrements like high-end ear-buds, noise-cancellation headphones, or docking stations with speakers. While uninspired, pens are always a safe bet, as are leather portfolios and laptop bags—although leather gifts are no-no’s for associates in a place like India, where cows are revered. As for inscribing company logos on such holiday gifts, the experts say that’s verboten.

“When you stick a logo on something, it’s not a gift—it becomes a promotional item and so it doesn’t say anything about the relationship,” says Klinkenberg. “With a gift, the investment is in the relationship, not necessarily in constantly reminding people of your existence.”

Richard F. Beltramini, a marketing professor at Wayne State University, has examined how giving holiday gifts to clients affects sales. In one yuletide-season experiment, Beltramini had a large manufacturer send one group of customers a gold scissors-and-letter-opener set valued at $40, another group the same set in silver valued at $20, and a third group nothing at all. Six months later, sales volume for the gold group had the most dramatic increase, followed by the silver group, while sales for the giftless group actually dropped.

“Gift giving alone cannot create a business relationship,” Beltramini writes in an email. “If done right, it can build and maintain solid business relationships. If done wrong, it can cause embarrassment or even boomerang negatively.”

While his research shows that gift giving can be part of an effective marketing strategy, Beltramini says he personally still takes pleasure in the simple act of gifting.

“Believe it or not, some of us simply enjoy gift giving without ulterior motives,” he says.