A method for calculations of electronic g-tensors based on a spin-restricted open-shell Kohn-Sham formalism and linear response theory is described. Test calculations for main group organic radicals and transition metal compounds have been carried out using two different spin-orbit approximations: Scaled spin-orbit and atomic mean-field spin-orbit operators. The results indicate slightly better performance of the proposed spin-restricted approach compared to previous methods based on the unrestricted Kohn-Sham formalism. An exception to this general improvement are the anions, as they show considerable spin-polarization. The results also show the superiority of the atomic mean field spin-orbit approximation of the spin-orbit operator with respect to the scaled approximation. For main group radicals, quantitative agreement with high level ab initio as well as experimental data are achieved, whereas for transition metal compounds the results systematically underestimate experimental values, showing also a considerable dependency on the employed exchange correlation functional, similarly to previous reports on calculations using unrestricted density functional theory. From this work we conclude that these problems are not primarily associated with the spin-contamination problem, and that they must be referred to the current time-dependent density functional theories as such. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.