Dans un contexte social où se renégocie le contrat de genre, l’exploration des voies empruntées par les hommes pour (apprendre à) changer leur comportement, aussi bien que leurs croyances et leurs connaissances sur la masculinité, est particulièrement importante. Située dans le champ des études sur le genre masculin et de l’andragogie, l’étude explore le processus d’apprentissage d’adultes faisant partie du Réseau Hommes Québec (RHQ). En utilisant une méthodologie qualitative, des entretiens semi-dirigés ont été effectués auprès de 16 membres de cette organisation d’entraide visant la remise en question des rôles de genre traditionnels masculins et encourageant le développement personnel des hommes. Si la plupart des répondants n’ont pas transformé radicalement leur conception de la masculinité, qui demeure souvent abstraite, leur façon de se voir comme homme a changé radicalement. Les émotions et les relations ont joué un rôle prépondérant dans le développement d’une réflexion critique sur le genre, le leur comme celui des autres. Le plus souvent, ils ont eu le courage de sentir, d’être et d’agir de façon inédite avec d’autres hommes. Cela a représenté, pour pratiquement tous les répondants, une véritable révolution intérieure qui leur a fait prendre conscience qu’ils étaient sensibles, qu’ils avaient besoin d’autrui et qu’ils pouvaient approcher d’autres hommes sans que leur orientation (hétéro)sexuelle soit menacée. Cette thèse met également en perspective que le contexte de groupe est crucial dans l’évolution des hommes. La socialisation masculine inédite vécue dans le Réseau favorise chez tous les répondants la découverte de modèles de masculinité différents. En plus d’y vivre des occasions uniques de développer des compétences relationnelles, sociales et communicationnelles qui les rapprochent de leurs proches, les répondants éprouvent dans les groupes du RHQ un sentiment puissant de pouvoir partager de l’intimité masculine. Ce nouveau mode d’interaction s’appuie sur les règles de fonctionnement et les rituels en vigueur dans le Réseau. Ils mettent l’accent sur la nature personnelle et subjective de la communication, défiant en cela les préceptes de la masculinité traditionnelle. En mettant en évidence que les hommes développent une conscience critique permettant de reconnaître et de comprendre l’importance de la culture masculine hégémonique et son impact sur leur vie, cette recherche révèle le potentiel transformationnel des apprentissages effectués par les 16 répondants dans des groupes d’entraide du RHQ. De cette conscientisation résulte une nouvelle conceptualisation de ce que signifie être un homme qui mène les participants à se voir autrement, à croire en eux-mêmes et en leur capacité à prendre le contrôle de leur vie. Pour conclure cette thèse, quelques pistes de réflexion pour guider de futures recherches relatives à la transformation de perspective sont présentées. Il est notamment question, en plus d’avoir recours à des entretiens rétrospectifs semi-dirigés, de combiner les méthodologies qualitatives et quantitatives, de procéder à des observations systématiques des situations d’apprentissage (rencontres de groupe) et de ne pas se concentrer exclusivement sur ceux qui sont supposés vivre la transformation, mais d’élargir cette collecte à d’autres sources d’information (familles, collègues de travail, voisins, thérapeutes individuels), le tout dans une perspective longitudinale. / In a social context where gender conventions are renegotiated, the exploration of ways taken by men to (learn to) change their behavior, as well as their beliefs and knowledge of masculinity, is particularly important. Situated in the fields of Men’s Studies and adult education, the study explores the learning process of adults being part of the “Réseau Hommes Québec” (RHQ). Using qualitative analysis methodology, semi-directed interviews were conducted with 16 members of this mutual aid organization aiming on the question of masculine traditional gender roles and encouraging the personal development of men. If most of the interviewees have not thoroughly transformed their conception of masculinity, which often remains abstract, their way to conceive themselves as men has changed radically. Emotions and relations have played a predominant role in the development of a critical reflection on gender, on their part as well as on others’. Most often, they had the courage to feel, to be and to act in an unobserved way with other men. This represented, for practically every interviewee, a real internal revolution making them realize that they were sensitive, that they needed others, and that they could get close to other men without threatening their own (hetero) sexual orientation. This thesis equally brings in perspective that the group context is a crucial element permitting men to evolve progressively. The unseen masculine socialization experienced in the Réseau (RHQ) has allowed all of the interviewees to discover different masculinity models. As well as offering them unique opportunities to develop relational, social, and communicational skills which promote harmony with their close ones, the RHQ groups have permitted the interviewees to experience a feeling of communitas, an impression of sharing masculine intimacy. This new interaction mode depends on regulations and rites in effect within the RHQ. They emphasize the personal and subjective nature of communication, challenging therein the traditional masculinity precepts. In intensifying that men develop a critical conscience allowing them to recognize and understand the importance of hegemonic masculine culture and its impact on their lives, this research reveals the potential of transformational learning performed by the 16 interviewees in the RHQ support groups for men. From this awareness will result a new conceptualization of being a man that will lead participants to perceive themselves otherwise, to believe in themselves as in their capacity to take control over their own lives. Finally, new reflection avenues are presented to guide future research related to perspective transformation. Notably, it is proposed that as well as having recourse to semi-directed retrospective interviews, to combine qualitative and quantitative methodology, to proceed with systematic observation of learning situations (group meetings), and to avoid concentrating exclusively on those who supposedly underwent the transformation, but to widen this data collect to other sources of information (family, work colleagues, neighbors, individual therapists), all in a enlarged perspective.

This thesis investigates the problem of detecting and tracking sticky notes on Kanban boards using classical computer vision techniques. Currently, there exists some alternatives for digitizing sticky notes, but none keep track of notes that have already been digitized, allowing for duplicate notes to be created when scanning multiple images of the same Kanban board. Kanban boards are widely used in various industries, and being able to recognize, and possibly in the future even digitize entire Kanban boards could provide users with extended functionality. The implementation presented in this thesis is able to, given two images, detect the Kanban boards in each image and rectify them. The rectified images are then sent to the Google Cloud Vision API for text detection. Then, the rectified images are used to detect all the sticky notes. The positional information of the notes and columns of the Kanban boards are then used to filter the text detection to find the text inside each note as well as the header text for each column. Between the two images, the columns are compared and matched, as well as notes of the same color. If columns or notes in one image do not have a match in the second image, it is concluded that the boards are different, and the user is informed of why. If all columns and notes in one image have matches in the second image but some notes have moved, the user is informed of which notes that have moved, and how they have moved as well. The different experiments conducted in this thesis on the implementation show that it works well, but it is very confined to strict requirements, making it unsuitable for commercial use. The biggest problem to solve is to make the implementation more general, i.e. the Kanban board layout, sticky note shapes and colors as well as their actual content. / Denna avhandling undersöker problemet med att upptäcka och spåra klisterlappar och Kanban-tavlor med hjälp av klassiska datorseendetekniker. För närvarande finns det några alternativ för att digitalisera klisterlappar, men ingen håller reda på anteckningar som redan har digitaliserats, vilket gör att duplicerade anteckningar kan skapas när du skannar flera bilder av samma Kanban-kort. Kanban-kort används flitigt i olika branscher och att kunna känna igen, och eventuellt i framtiden även digitalisera hela Kanban-tavlor, skulle kunna ge användarna utökad funktionalitet. Implementeringen som presenteras i denna avhandling kan, givet två bilder, upptäcka Kanban-brädorna i varje bild och korrigera dem. De korrigerade bilderna skickas sedan till Google Cloud Vision API för textidentifiering. Sedan används de korrigerade bilderna för att upptäcka alla klisterlappar. Positionsinformationen för anteckningarna och kolumnerna på Kanban-tavlan används sedan för att filtrera textdetekteringen för att hitta texten i varje anteckning såväl som rubriktexten för varje kolumn. Mellan de två bilderna jämförs och matchas kolumnerna, samt anteckningar av samma färg. Om kolumner eller anteckningar i en bild inte har en matchning i den andra bilden dras slutsatsen att brädorna är olika och användaren informeras om varför. Om alla kolumner och anteckningar i en bild har matchningar i den andra bilden men några anteckningar har flyttats, informeras användaren om vilka anteckningar som har flyttats och hur de har flyttats. De olika experiment som genomförs i denna avhandling om implementering visar att den fungerar bra, men den är mycket begränsad till strikta krav, vilket gör den olämplig för kommersiellt bruk. Det största problemet att lösa är att göra implementeringen mer generell, d.v.s. Kanban-tavlans layout, klisterlapparnas former och färger samt deras faktiska innehåll.

The postmodern organisation and its leaders are faced with relentless turbulence and change and a compelling economic drive for success. The recent exponential rise in the popularity of coaching can be ascribed to the business need for the development of leadership bench-strength. Appreciative inquiry (AI) claims to be a source of untapped strength for organisations in the postmodern world and a source of sustainable solutions and genesis for energy. However, the scarcity of evidence of coaching linked to a postmodern stance, incorporating AI principles, as well as using group-based coaching methods, provided an opportunity for this study to respond to the challenges and contribute to the theory and practice of leadership coaching in the organisational setting by investigating the transformative effects of a postmodern group-based leadership coaching programme (LCP) on leaders’ personal and professional perspectives. The premises suggest that postmodern group-based coaching is a practical and cost-effective methodology in multi-cultural international organisations. Furthermore, postmodern coaching in groups can transform the personal and professional perspectives of leaders, specifically in transforming future plans, goal-directedness, confidence, resilience, hope, subjective well-being and empowerment as a leader, as well as broadening life outlooks. Key transformative themes were identified: self-knowledge, appreciation of others, broader vision, self-control and work-life integration. This applied study has made a valuable contribution to the body of research in the area of postmodern and group-based coaching. Replication of the study in other industries, setting and with different levels of leadership, training of postmodern coaches and robust follow-up coaching were identified as opportunities for further exploration. / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / D.Lit. et Phil. (Industrial Psychology)

The postmodern organisation and its leaders are faced with relentless turbulence and change and a compelling economic drive for success. The recent exponential rise in the popularity of coaching can be ascribed to the business need for the development of leadership bench-strength. Appreciative inquiry (AI) claims to be a source of untapped strength for organisations in the postmodern world and a source of sustainable solutions and genesis for energy. However, the scarcity of evidence of coaching linked to a postmodern stance, incorporating AI principles, as well as using group-based coaching methods, provided an opportunity for this study to respond to the challenges and contribute to the theory and practice of leadership coaching in the organisational setting by investigating the transformative effects of a postmodern group-based leadership coaching programme (LCP) on leaders’ personal and professional perspectives. The premises suggest that postmodern group-based coaching is a practical and cost-effective methodology in multi-cultural international organisations. Furthermore, postmodern coaching in groups can transform the personal and professional perspectives of leaders, specifically in transforming future plans, goal-directedness, confidence, resilience, hope, subjective well-being and empowerment as a leader, as well as broadening life outlooks. Key transformative themes were identified: self-knowledge, appreciation of others, broader vision, self-control and work-life integration. This applied study has made a valuable contribution to the body of research in the area of postmodern and group-based coaching. Replication of the study in other industries, setting and with different levels of leadership, training of postmodern coaches and robust follow-up coaching were identified as opportunities for further exploration. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / D.Lit. et Phil. (Industrial Psychology)