MOST of us were expecting grateful smiles or at least elated expressions and a big 'thank you' - not to mention reciprocal gifts of roughly equal value - when we wrapped those presents in colourful festive paper at Christmas.

But we never really know for sure we'll get anything at all in return and certainly, if my own experience is representative, we don't always accurately predict the costbenefit value of the exchange to ourselves and whether our little pot of 'in' presents will equal the 'out' ones.

And for God's Sake, we surely never anticipated the bath cubes!

But still we give. We give in generosity, in charity, in neighbourliness and in friendship.

Maybe we even give in subterfuge and self-promotion, but whatever our motives, giving gifts is one of the ceremonies embedded in our culture to highlight events and mark out meaningful relationships.

Gift opening is another story entirely, one full of potential pain and disappointment, upstaging and embarrassment, but these exchanges remain the done thing in all walks of life.

While not getting what you expected in exchange can leave lasting pain, not getting anything at all can be bad for business.

Judging by increasing reports of domestic and international business and political scandal, gift-giving is a staple of the corporation and the committee and the political environments that policymakers and decision-takers and mover-shakers inhabit.

With the arrest of Lord Levy and Ruth Turner last week, it appears the hazy world of giving and getting is to be on the agenda once again, reminiscent of Bertie's giving a talk, getting eight grand last year and the whole giving and getting algorithms which defy everyday ethics and confound even the most cynical.

According to conduct codes and ethics rules, corporate giving may defy chapter and verse of what should be done but these generous people in powerful positions just cannot resist the urge to pass on to others some expression of the success they themselves have come to enjoy and to which the rest of us so eagerly aspire.

It's not all Euro50,000 stashes or swathes of land, though.

For many it's boxed wine duos to fancy corporate outings, race meeting tickets, theatre and golf outings, fabulous sojourns abroad in top hotels and trips to rally and ranch; a huge array of gifted goodies get exchanged all the time to and from all sorts of business, including the business of politics. And we don't seem to mind.

Is it all just a matter of scale then? If it's a six-figure cheque, call in the guards. Ten grand, that's OK. A few bottles of St Emillion Reserve, fair enoughski.

Ever since the understandable collapse of the brown envelope industry a few years ago, the white envelope has come into its own.

The innocent little recycled paper missives flutter from D'Olier Street to Stephens Green and out to the suburban corporate park HQs and the rural piles of the favoured few hundred with invites and tickets and vouchers a plenty.

The reasons for such yearround giving in business circles are manifold: corporate boxes at sports fixtures, for instance, are a perk that big corporations offer their loyal clients. But a bottle of nice Burgundy would suffice as a 'thank you' from a small outfit that is appreciative of many small, regular customers rather than a single major one.

At Christmas, it's easier to accept that these are all gifts to show appreciation for custom, and add a welcome and warm human touch and personal buy-in to the business of making money.

But when gift-giving becomes a part of the business relationship - not an addon but part of the very transactual nature of the relationship - it's harder to separate the business-to-business element and the personal palm-greasing we love to decry publicly - but only in retrospect, please.

This year again, corruption allegations have surfaced for Tony Blair and will probably claim another politician or MD, board member or shareholder or inside trader. His or her misdeed will likely be related to giving something for nothing, expecting nothing and getting nothing in return? and feeling nothing like the anger and pain the rest of us would feel had we forked out a few grand - or more - for anyone, anywhere, to get nothing or very little back.

Think bath cubes.

In business, corporate giftgiving is a control mechanism intended to align the interests of the little people involved, so that their personal buy-in to the deals and delivery schedules will mean a better business outcome for the giver. The use of ongoing gifts in business, usually to employees at middle and senior levels, takes account of people's need for personal recognition and makes them feel a more responsibile for ensuring the gift-giver gets the account again next year.

On one level, these little pressies show that the big corporate fatcats are just like us - they like the good things in life and realise that we do too, so we accept their warm wishes and the goodies they bestow. We're pretty sure we can avoid an appearance at a tribunal and so we head to the races, the rally, the golf or the panto box, and although we're bemused to see that half the wasters in the office are there too, we feel that we, at least, are deserving of the little perk.

Yet this culture of bringing interpersonal relations and personal reward into the business world is something we say we eschew. When the first such 'scandal' makes a headline later this year, it will be talked about and debated and we will peer like frenzied geese at the spoils of the corruption. "Look at the house!

How did he pay for that? !

Trips to Marrakesh? aha! !"

We'll engage in exaggerated ooh and ah antics and seek out Hello-type shots of mansions abroad and princely lifestyles.

And our national psyche will again be strained as talk radio prattle and pub tittletattle will gradually Radox away our worry as to the rights and wrongs of it all.

Probably, eventually we'll display our tendency to view ethics in business and politics as a sideshow in the largely economic-dominated establishment we have signed up to.

No matter what we say to each other, and how we pretend to be shocked by corrupt practices that get exposed, we seem more shocked by the trauma of the exposure to ourselves - and the abyss that exists between the haves and ourselves - than we really are about the antics or the robbery which is the wrongdoing.

Anyone with a modicum of business savvy knows that it is accepted practice to try to inspire loyalty in the people on whom your business depends.

Faced with competing pressures and up against very similar competitors, the easiest way is often to 'look after' John or Mary or Ellen or Mick, regularly.

We don't expect anything 'special' in return, just the preservation of the status quo, or an unspoken understanding that we'll be looked after in some way in return - it generates a sense of security that we have a commitment established.

Just not bath cubes.

Patricia Murray is an organisational and work psychologist