In the early 2000s, several post-communist countries launched reforms of university management and governance marked by the influence of a "modernization agenda" for higher education governance, which was promoted by the World Bank, the OECD and the European Commission. However, this "modernization agenda" was employed differently in different countries. This article examines the mechanisms involved in such "translation" through a comparison of the introduction of university governing boards in Lithuania and Romania. There were two key findings. First, in line with the literature, it appears that institutional features formed during the institutional design process at the time of the transition in the early 1990s played an important role in translating the "modernization agenda" almost 20 years later. They set in motion path-dependent logics that affected the manner and extent to which a "modernization agenda" was "translated". Second, data gathered through extensive interviewing across the two national cases further show how actors' perceptions of institutions may also crucially influence policy translation.