How can corporations be as dynamic and responsive as the market itself if they are not markets?

This is the job of marketing with open communications throughout other departments.

Marketing planning and regular environmental scanning can help businesses stay in tune with the changing needs of their consumers.

Looking at macro (perhaps with pestel analysis), micro ( porters 5 forces) and internal (product place price and promotion ) and following with a summary of key points (swot) is a basic way to analyse changes in your market segment which in turn allows businesses to meet the needs of ots customers.

A good metaphor is it does not matter how nice your car is if you stay still on the motorway you will crash. This means even i a business is well established and strongly branded if it does not understand the market and how it changes by using strategy ajd market plannning it will likely fail. E.g blockbuster, woolworths, jessops.

well they're in markets, and subject to whatever pressures are put on them by their competition

the only problem with that theory is, it's generally not acknowledged that these folks don't actually *want* to compete with *anybody*, and they will do anything they can to avoid doing so. which in practice tend to result in larger and larger corporations, using economies of scale, to eventually form what amount to cartels and monopolies in whatever sector they've staked out.