From the moment he launched his bid for US Senate, Stephen Pagliuca has carved out a niche in the Democratic field as the wealthy businessman vowing to use his corporate experience to help create jobs in Massachusetts and beyond.

Pagliuca, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics, has worked for 20 years in private equity, buying up dozens of businesses with the aim of improving their bottom line and then selling them at a profit.

“I know how to create jobs,’’ he says in one of his television spots. “I’ve helped struggling people and companies get back on their feet and back in the game.’’

This campaign strategy, though, has its risks, particularly in a Democratic primary dominated by liberal voters and activists, whose ideals and policies at times clash with those of corporate America. Critics, including his three opponents in the primary, will surely seize on the jobs his deals have lost, his shrewd maneuvering in the business world, and the decisions he has made along the way.

While Pagliuca has been involved in many deals and companies in his career, his longtime association with Connecticut-based Gartner Inc., a large information and technology research and advisory firm, illustrates both the benefits and the perils of running for Senate on a business background.

Pagliuca helped purchase Gartner in 1990, through a division of Bain Capital, and he was the longest-serving member of its 12-member board before he resigned last month.

But while Pagliuca helped grow the company into a highly respected firm that does business across the globe, Gartner has also promoted outsourcing as a way for companies to grow. And it is that element of Gartner’s business, including its sponsoring of several workshops to teach companies how to cut costs by sending jobs overseas, that could become a political liability for a candidate trying to pitch a jobs-creation platform to a liberal audience.

Outsourcing, which a variety of businesses, including the Globe, have employed to reduce personnel costs, is viewed unfavorably by some Democratic voters and activists, who believe the practice hurts American workers by killing jobs and depressing wages.

Pagliuca said in an interview that the outsourcing workshops were “a very small part of the business’’ and one that the board of directors had no role in overseeing.

“Gartner is a huge, huge success story,’’ he said, adding that it grew from about 200 employees to more than 4,000 over the 20 years that he was involved. “Voters are smart enough to understand that the management has to manage the company, and the board is in charge of major strategic decisions.’’

Pagliuca notified the Gartner board on Sept. 21 that he would resign effective immediately, because of his entrance into the Senate race. On the day of his resignation, Pagliuca was given 41,864 shares of the company, bringing his total to 91,222 shares, according to SEC records. The market value of those shares on the day he resigned was $17.75, making his stock worth $1.6 million.Gartner provides a range of services for companies, offering research and data on trends throughout the technology industry, supplying analysts that help executives improve their businesses, and offering workshops and seminars for clients.

But one aspect of its business is helping firms understand how to take advantage of contract workers, both in the United States and abroad.

“The level of recruitment in India, where higher demand leads to more hires, is not sustainable,’’ reads a promotional brochure from a workshop earlier this year in Las Vegas, under the heading “Is India Still the Answer?’’ “Start considering other offshore destinations or ask your Indian vendor if they are doing more with automation.’’

The company also has a free online seminar that highlights “outsourcing trends and service market insights,’’ as well as a video on “cutting costs with outsourcing.’’ The firm held its 10th annual “Gartner Outsourcing & IT Services Summit’’ in June, at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

“If companies are looking at whether to outsource or not, we basically provide independent research on how to assess whether outsourcing is the right approach to take,’’ said Andrew Spender, vice president of corporate communications at Gartner.

But, he added, “it’s not as simplistic as saying that outsourcing is taking jobs from one country and taking them to another.’’

The company held about 70 symposiums and issue-oriented workshops for companies last year, five of which dealt with outsourcing. Spender added that Pagliuca would have played no role in any of the outsourcing events.

“The board of directors have absolutely no involvement in the research topics that we cover, period,’’ Spender said. “The only people who determine what we cover as a research organization are our clients.’’

Still, just as elected leaders seeking higher office have to answer for every vote they’ve taken, no matter how small, candidates with a background in business face questions over the decisions they have made in the corporate sector.

“There’s no question that somebody like Pagliuca has a much better reception in a general election than perhaps in a Democratic primary,’’ said Paul Watanabe, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. “The problem for Pagliuca is that in a Democratic primary, he will be subjected to intense scrutiny not of the claims of what’s been achieved, but how it’s been achieved and at what cost.’’

Former governor Mitt Romney faced similar challenges as he ran against Edward M. Kennedy in 1994. During their campaign, in which Pagliuca backed Romney, Kennedy criticized Romney for job and revenue losses at a company that was purchased by Bain Capital, the company Romney founded and where Pagliuca spent much of his career.

Bain purchased American Pad & Paper, or Ampad, in 1992 and cut wages and laid off employees, which Kennedy highlighted when Romney gained in the polls. Laid-off employees came to Massachusetts to picket Romney’s events. Even though Romney argued that he had nothing to do with the decision to slice the workforce – he had taken a leave from the firm before the decisions were made – the charges stuck, and Kennedy won.

Pagliuca’s deep background in business extends well beyond Gartner, and some of those associations may also surface in some form as the campaign heats up. In addition to his Bain deals, he has sat on the boards of several other companies, including Burger King Holdings Inc., Hospital Corporation of America, and Warner Chilcott Corp., from all of which he has resigned.

Pagliuca’s work for all those companies could inform his campaign and economic development platform, but they could also pose political challenges.

“Every connection, no matter how big or how small in a closely contested Democratic race is going to be enlarged, expanded upon, examined, and up for grabs,’’ Watanabe said.

Source:http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/21/as_pagliuca_calls_for_job_gains_shadow_of_outsourcing_looms/