The paper enquires into the implementation of the European Standards and Guidelines for Internal Quality Assurance of Higher Education Institutions (ESG 1). The enquiry uses data from universities in the Czech Republic and compares them against those obtained in the relevant pan-European survey. The aims are to empirically deconstruct ESG 1 translation through instrument mixes, to identify the corresponding implementation styles and to explore the implications of such styles for institutional quality cultures. In these respects, the enquiry yielded three corresponding findings. First, the ESG 1 instrument mixes are complex and entail the application of up to four major types of tools, cutting across the substantive and procedural categories over time. Second, two typical ESG 1 implementation styles were identified: managerial and academic. Third, the managerial style was found to bear on regenerative culture while the academic style bore on reproductive culture. Furthermore, utilisation of hybrid quality cultures (regenerative-reproductive, reproductive-regenerative) was found, depending on internal institutional configurations. It is through verification of these findings in other policy settings that international research on higher education quality assurance may gainfully proceed.