There was a time that Latin ruled the world. Now it is a forgotten language, used only by doctors and botanists. In its heydays, it was the vehicle of progress. Mastering this language was a precondition for access to scientific knowledge. Nowadays, digitalization is a major challenge for logistic companies. To perform the digital transformation, companies need new knowledge. However, they find it difficult to identify, transfer and apply this knowledge in their organization. New (periphery) knowledge, is usually difficult to translate and integrate into their communication. In this paper we explore specific, language related knowledge barriers, that cause these problems and how to overcome them, which accelerates logistic companies to digitalize.
In the literature review we discuss knowledge and its types (tacit & explicit, core & periphery), knowledge management and its strategies (regenerative and anticipatory), knowledge barriers and their types (syntactic, semantic and pragmatic). From the literature review we conclude that companies that have mastered the basic syntactics (the words) have fewer difficulties explaining knowledge (semantic mode) and taking the next steps to effectively use this knowledge (pragmatics). This can be explained with the analogy of learning a natural language; first the words then the meaning. Companies that are highly efficient, have learned to communicate within their network using digital knowledge. In order to digitalize, companies need a knowledge management strategy for which there are different possibilities depending on the organization’s characteristics. Which specific tools are effective for digitalization needs further research.