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No, a citation is not needed. It’s entirely normal that poor performers are fired. What is utterly implausible is the idea that poor performers are never fired. That’s a weird fiction people like to repeat here that doesn’t stand up to the slightest amount of thought.

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If by "normal" you mean "reasonable", then you're right. If you mean "common", then try working at a large publicly-traded company for a few years. I agree that this stance doesn't stand up "to the slightest amount of thought", but yours doesn't measure up to the reality in the field. The reason people are saying something that makes no sense is probably because it's actually happening a lot.

I work in a world-famous publicly-traded company and previous top head was unceremoniously fired when their superiors realized we're years behind competition on a lifeline product.

That's good! One example. But we need thousands more to be able to say this is common though.

There's a reason the term "fail upwards" is so commonly used.

Regardless of that product, how long was he making bad decisions before he was replaced? If it's less than two years, are you hiring? :)

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