Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 3, 2021 https://cibg.org.au/ P-ISSN: 2204-1990; E-ISSN: 1323-6903 DOI: 10.47750/cibg.2021.27.03.307 Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Society of Business and management. This is an Open Access Article distributed under the CC BY license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Explaining the Challenges Facing the Development of Entrepreneurial University: The Application of Grounded Theory NEDA HEYDARIAN 1 , MARYAM OMIDI NAJAFABADI 2* , FARHAD LASHGARARA 3 , MEHDI MIRDAMADI 4 1 Department of Economic, Agricultural Extension and Education, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. 2 Department of Economic, Agricultural Extension and Education, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Economic, Agricultural Extension and Education, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. 4 Department of Economic, Agricultural Extension and Education, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. * Corresponding Author Email:n_heidarian@yahoo.com 1 ,m.omidi@srbiau.ac.ir 2 ,flashgarara@yahoo.com 3 ,mirdamadi.mehdi@gmail.co m 4 Abstract: An entrepreneurial university is a new approach to improving the quality of higher education systems around the world. However, the lack of a transparent mechanism has prevented Iranian universities from turning into an entrepreneurial university. In this regard, the present study aimed to identify the barriers facing the development of an entrepreneurial university in Islamic Azad University (Science and Research Branch). The statistical population was composed of managers and faculty members of the university, of whom 24 respondents were selected by the snowball sampling method. Using Grounded Theory, the respondents were subjected to in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed by NVivo10 software. In total, 55 codes were extracted in the open-coding step. Finally, eight main concepts were derived through the codifying hierarchy of Grounded Theory according to which the challenges included academic, distance, operational, human, management, strategic, political, and cultural ones. Each concept expresses one aspect of the subject. According to the results, the distance challenge is the most important challenge of the entrepreneurial university development at Islamic Azad University. The paper is concluded with some practical suggestions to facilitate the path to an entrepreneurial university. Keywords: Higher Education, Agriculture, Employment, Entrepreneurship, Third Generation, Grounded Theory. INTRODUCTION The agricultural sector is considered the main pivot of and a prerequisite for national development. Agricultural development requires human resources that are developed through agricultural higher education (Prasad, Kumar, & Prasad, 2014). Higher education is the center of economic development around the world (Coleman, 2015; Fägerlind & Saha, 2016; Materu, 2007). Therefore, the quality of the products and services in each country is dependent on how the educated people think, act, and decide, so higher education quality is a key factor in the hidden competition of countries (Ghochani & Mohamadzadeh, 2015; Kaissi, Abou Chahine, & Jammal, 2008; Pfeffer, 2015). As such, universities and educational institutions, as the guardians of education, play an important role in human resource development (Allui & Sahni, 2016; Nicolescu, 2009; Rafiei & Davari, 2015). Since the first university was established in Iran in 1934, higher education has experienced rapid quantitative growth in the country. But, the global experiences show that if higher education intends to train talented people to participate and compete in the international market, a shift is necessary towards the quality development of universities (Zarrintan & Aslanabadi, 2015). One of the important challenges of human societies, especially in the era of globalization and more mechanized activities, is to provide employment (Li, 2020; Rani & Grimshaw, 2019). Unemployment, besides reducing the economic-human resources' efficiency, will intensify social and cultural issues in societies (TURERE, 2017; Urban & Galawe, 2019). It will raise many anomalies in societies (Farrall, Gray, & Mike Jones, 2020; Lagneau- Ymonet & Reynaud, 2020), so it is one of the main concerns of governments and decision-makers around the world are trying to find a solution for it. In this regard, the agricultural sector and rural areas of developing