Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance across different levels of environmental hostility and market growth. The contingency approach of two-way interactions of EO with each environmental variable is contrasted with the configurational approach of three-way interactions of EO simultaneously with different levels of both environmental variables. Design/methodology/approach – Hierarchical regression analysis is applied for the pooled data set of 163 Finnish and Russian small- and medium-sized enterprises, and supplemented with post hoc analysis of the differences in regression slopes across environmental configurations. Findings – Results show that EO is directly and positively associated with firm performance. However, the strength and direction of this relationship varies by configurations of the external environment variables. Firms achieve superior performance when adopting EO in environments with high levels of both