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Group A Streptococcus (GAS) infections result in a considerable underappreciated burden of acute and chronic disease globally. A 2018 World Health Assembly resolution calls for better control and prevention. Providing guidance on global health research needs is an important World Health Organization (WHO) activity, influencing prioritization of investments. Here, the role, status, and directions in GAS vaccines research are discussed. WHO preferred product characteristics and a research and development technology roadmap, briefly presented, offer an actionable framework for vaccine development to regulatory and policy decision making, availability, and use. GAS vaccines should be considered for global prevention of the range of clinical manifestations and associated antibiotic use. Impediments related to antigen diversity, safety concerns, and the difficulty to establish vaccine efficacy against rheumatic heart disease are discussed. Demonstration of vaccine efficacy against pharyngitis and skin infections constitutes a key near-term strategic goal. Investments and collaborative partnerships to diversify and advance vaccine candidates are needed., Group A Streptococcus causes a wide spectrum of acute and chronic human disease and considerable antibiotic use. Through a consensus-building consultation process, the World Health Organization developed a vision for vaccine development, highlighting strategic targets, product preferences, and priority research/development activities.

Purpose During this current era of the knowledge economy, knowledge activities have greatly impacted manufacturing activities, with knowledge being treated as a critical factor that creates and sustains competitive advantages. Past studies tended to relate knowledge works with organizational tasks and assumed that knowledge workers implement those tasks to achieve organizational goals. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to employ the perspective of task domain as the basis to clarify the impact of manufacturing task domains on the manufacturing strategy, as well as the mediating effects of knowledge advantage on such an impact. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow Becerra-Fernandez and Sabherwal’s (2001) task which focus/task breadth dichotomy as the basis to define market-based task domains, employs Leonard-Barton’s (1995) T-shaped skill as the theoretical base to construct knowledge advantages, i.e., knowledge depth (I-shaped skill), diversity (hyphened skill), and convergence (T-shaped skill), and uses the conventional typology to measure the manufacturing strategy (i.e. cost, quality, flexibility, and delivery). The empirical study is conducted via a questionnaire survey and selects Taiwan’s top 600 manufacturers as the population and accordingly collects 131 effective observations. Findings The empirical evidence indicates that firms’ priorities on cost and delivery are positively caused by the focus orientation of the tasks, while their priorities on quality and flexibility are positively caused by both focus and diversity orientations of the tasks. The results also signify that knowledge advantages perform complete mediation on the previous relationships. In more detail, knowledge depth presents mediation on focus orientation, and knowledge convergence exhibits mediating effects both on focus and breadth orientations. The statistics point out that knowledge depth has the highest impact on the manufacturing strategy, but knowledge diversity fails to significantly explain the manufacturing strategy. Originality/value Literature assumed that knowledge activities are task-driven issue; this study hence examines knowledge advantage based on the task domain perspective to clarify the architecture and contents of knowledge advantages.