"competitive ethos" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It refers to the overall attitude or spirit of competitiveness within a group or organization. You can use it in any context where you want to describe the competitive mindset or environment of a particular group or situation. Example: "The school's sports teams have a strong competitive ethos, constantly pushing each other to strive for excellence on the field."
Her father's competitive ethos has, at times, been reflected in Mazumdar-Shaw's management style.
The competitive ethos generated by London's administrative fragmentation is most evident in the realm of classical music.
The most significant impact may be on the market-based, competitive ethos which successive governments have introduced into education, however.
Yet we were invited to see the men's ferocity not as an aberration but as a natural outgrowth of the competitive ethos bred into them by corporate life.
There is evidence that a competitive ethos can trigger mental illness among the winners as well as the losers, not least in the case of sport stars.
An American who infused an ancient, Quaker-founded British institution with the highly paid, highly competitive ethos of Wall Street investment banking, he was described by Lord Mandelson, then the business secretary, as "the unacceptable face of banking".
Ryan tells us how "social reformers opposed to the aggressive-competitive ethos of Darwinism looked to mutualism in nature for an alternative philosophy".
Liz McColgan, John Jeffrey, David Wilkie and other sporting legends have been vying with each other to rail against the non-competitive ethos and to blame it for sporting apathy and decline.
But a series of developments over the last 20 years or so -- a university's ability to patent and license scientific discoveries, the Internet's potential to market ideas, and a competitive cultural ethos that relies more and more on rankings in many fields of endeavor, including college admissions -- are creating new ethical quandaries.
According to anthropologists, the close-knit personal relationships, the age mixing, and the non-competitive, egalitarian ethos of hunter-gatherer cultures worked effectively to prevent serious bullying (Gray 2009a).
At the Hester Street Fair on the Lower East Side, a competitive indie food ethos reigns, even with 8,000 visitors on a typical Saturday, said the former MTV correspondent SuChin Pak, its founder.
